The Daily Telegraph

Tang dies before his ‘farewell to life’ party

Expert on lung diseases who became the first woman president of the Royal College of Physicians

- By Anita Singh

SIR DAVID TANG, the businessma­n and bon vivant, has died at the age of 63, a week before a planned “farewell to life party” in London.

Friends recently received an invitation to The Dorchester hotel that read: “As I’ve been given by my politburo of medical experts just a month or two to last, I thought the best way to go would be to give a party where we can see each other at least one more time.”

He died on Tuesday at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital.

Sir David, founder of the Shanghai Tang fashion chain and the China Tang restaurant, counted royals and Alist stars among his social circle. Many paid tribute on social media. Russell Crowe, the actor, wrote: “RIP dear friend... Witty, charming, intellectu­al, salacious, hilarious, loving and funny as f---.” Stephen Fry called him “outrageous, kind, brilliant, original and wholly marvellous”.

Nigel Farage, former UKIP leader, was due to attend the party. He said: “He couldn’t bear the thought of us all having a drink at his memorial when he wasn’t there.”

PROFESSOR DAME MARGARET TURNER-WARWICK, who has died aged 92, was a leading thoracic physician who played a major role in transformi­ng respirator­y medicine from an NHS backwater to one of the main priorities for healthcare programmes and research; in 1989 she became the first woman to be elected president of the Royal College of Physicians.

In 1972 when Margaret Turnerwarw­ick was appointed to a chair of medicine at the Cardiothor­acic Institute at London University, much respirator­y medicine focused on infectious diseases and lung physiology. Knowledge of other lung diseases was undevelope­d. By coordinati­ng research, especially in interstiti­al lung disease, asthma, mesothelio­ma, occupation­al lung diseases and uncommon inflammato­ry disorders, Margaret Turner-warwick raised the profile of lung disease within the NHS and more widely.

Under her leadership, between 1972 and 1984 there was an explosion of interest in the cellular basis of disease as well as the applicatio­n of pharmacolo­gical and clinical trials to test new treatments, and the Institute (now the National Heart and Lung Institute) became an internatio­nal centre of excellence for clinical care, research and training. Margaret Turner-warwick was an enormous inspiratio­n to many leading thoracic specialist­s during the formative years of their careers.

Her own early research focused on tuberculos­is and later she was involved in research into the use of corticoste­roids in the treatment of asthma. She developed a particular interest in immunology and pioneering work with Deborah Donach and Jack Pepys resulted in the publicatio­n of her textbook, Immunology of the Lung, in 1978.

She was born Margaret Elizabeth Harvey Moore in central London on November 19 1924, the third of four daughters of a QC who told his girls that they could expect no dowries but that he would pay for any amount of education. Her eldest sister became a pathologis­t, the second a linguist; Margaret, at the age of eight, decided on medicine. She was luckier than her mother, Maud, who had come to the same decision in a less emancipate­d era. She was a niece of Lord Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, who became her guardian when her parents died. He drew the line at her reading medicine, declaring it “unladylike”. She did, in fact, go to university and to medical school, but had to leave after two years to care for a brother who had been wounded in the First World War, then married instead of resuming her studies.

The family moved to Exeter where Margaret was educated at Maynard School, but they returned to London during the war and she completed her sixth form studies at St Paul’s Girls’ School, winning a scholarshi­p to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. There she was one of the annual quota of only seven women in the whole Oxford intake of 100 medical students. She responded to the prevailing ethos of sexism – as she would in her career – by simply ignoring it, won the Welch Anatomy Prize and graduated in Physiology.

As a child Margaret had suffered attacks of bronchopne­umonia and ear infections, and in her last year at Oxford she was diagnosed with tuberculos­is. She decided to delay treatment so that she could finish her degree, but spent the next year in a Swiss sanatorium, an experience she found “invaluable” in her later career.

She went on to complete her clinical training at University College Hospital. In 1950 she married Richard Turnerwarw­ick, a fellow medical student at Oxford with whom she had fallen in love over the dissecting table. They had two daughters and he would become eminent as a surgeon specialisi­ng in reconstruc­tive urology.

During the 1950s she juggled her family responsibi­lities with junior doctor posts at University College and Brompton hospitals: “My old family nanny, who had stayed on as companion to my mother, then came to me. Also, we built a house in the garden of my parents-in-law, so there was always someone at home … It made all the difference.’’ Among her recreation­s she listed “family and their hobbies”.

In 1960 she was appointed a consultant physician at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital and in 1967 consultant physician at the London Chest and Brompton Hospitals. At the same time she was a senior lecturer at the Institute of Diseases of the Chest. In 1972 she was appointed professor of thoracic medicine at the Cardiothor­acic Institute of London University. She was dean of the institute from 1984 to 1987.

She took up her post as president of the RCP in 1989 at a time of great change in the NHS brought about by the Conservati­ves’ “internal market” reforms. She played a key role in framing the concerns of college members about continuity of care, changing the way the college operated in order to be more effective in presenting its case to government.

Margaret Turner-warwick lectured widely abroad and served on many governing and advisory bodies on the NHS. She was president of the British Thoracic Society in 1982-83 and chairman of the Asthma Research Council from 1982 to 1987. In retirement she served for three years as chairman of the Royal Devon and Exeter Healthcare Trust and was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 1991 to 2000.

In 2006 an annual Margaret Turner-warwick Respirator­y Lecture, was founded by the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust. In April 2015 she officially opened the Margaret Turner Warwick Education Centre for the NHLI at the Royal Brompton campus of Imperial College London.

She was appointed DBE in 1991. Her husband and daughters survive her.

 ??  ?? Entreprene­ur Sir David Tang had organised a final party for friends at The Dorchester
Entreprene­ur Sir David Tang had organised a final party for friends at The Dorchester
 ??  ?? Portrait of Margaret Turner-warwick by David Poole: she fell in love with her husband over the dissecting table
Portrait of Margaret Turner-warwick by David Poole: she fell in love with her husband over the dissecting table

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