John Colley graduated from St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School in 1955. He was among that early post-war cohort who expanded epidemiology from data interpretation to become of more immediate clinical relevance. They did so by developing clinically validated measures of health state and function for use in large-scale population studies. That developed the thinking behind today’s health screening studies and research into health change with age. It provided new understanding about the natural history of disease and ageing, showing the significance of growth in early life to health in adulthood.
Population health questions in the 1960s concerned the effects of smoking and atmospheric pollution. John’s measures of childhood respiratory function began with his MD thesis, The evaluation of a test of infant lung function for use in epidemiological field studies, and he then contributed significantly to understanding the long-term effects of childhood exposure to atmospheric pollution and passive smoking. Working with WW Holland and others, he confirmed DD Reid’s hypothesis that there were likely to be childhood precursors of adult-onset chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and premature decline in adult respiratory function. He was one of the first to use the national longitudinal studies’ data banks for such research. Later he also contributed to understanding the relationship of infant feeding with atopy and the relationship of birthweight with adult blood pressure. These were solid foundations on which later research was developed.
After teaching and research appointments at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an honorary consultant post in clinical epidemiology at Great Ormond Street Hospital, John became Professor of Public Health Medicine at Bristol. He enlarged the department, making it a resource for scientific expertise in public health in the NHS South West Region, developed its preclinical and clinical teaching to stimulate practice of evidence-based medicine, and encouraged new research. He chaired the University’s Board of Medical Studies (1986-89) and was an external examiner at several UK medical schools.
He was honorary director of the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) National Survey of Health and Development, the 1946 birth cohort study, while it was based (1979-86) in his department. John and I and the psychiatrist, the late Dr Sheila Mann, then established baseline measures of physical and mental functioning, diet and exercise, to make the study a resource for research into the processes of ageing.
John contributed to public health and epidemiology through membership of MRC and Department of Health investigative and research award committees and the Transplant Advisory Panel. His expertise was sought as a consultant by the European Community about industrial accidents involving release of toxic gases in Italy, and by the World Health Organisation on childhood respiratory disease and atmospheric pollution. He contributed extensively to the work of the Faculty of Public Health and the research and postgraduate work of the NHS in the South West Region and the local health authority. He was Editor of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health from 1985 to 1992.
John Colley was a rigorous medical scientist of great integrity, and a stimulating colleague. On his appointment to the Bristol professorship, John was coming home, close to where he had grown up in Bath, where his father Richard had been an ophthalmic surgeon.
John was devoted to his family, and they energetically ran a smallholding at Lower Failand. On retirement they kept a flock of 36 breeding ewes, ponies, foals and five dogs. He loved sailing, listening to classical music, and reading, and was a talented artist. In 2004 the family moved to Littlehempston, in Devon, where John kept a boat on the Dart, and enjoyed trips to Dartmouth with grandchildren and dogs. He enjoyed a long and happy retirement and leaves his widow, Lesley, daughters Sarah and Charlotte and granddaughters Jasmine, Chloe and Imogen.