Jeremy Lawley Fell

Born Jeremy Lawley Fell at Birmingham Children's Hospital he was a typical post war baby! Small and underweight but he developed quickly with the help of his mum and dad. His early days at Yenton Primary School were not good. At the end of the first term his position in the class was 46. There were 47 in his group, The headmaster said that he was, "Not an academic boy,'' but following intervention from his dad, he would still put him on the list to take the 11+ examination. This he failed. Later in his life he met someone who had a similar problem. However, they both in their own ways changed the world. Following his interest in science he moved to London and studied for a BSc honours Degree in Analytical Chemistry. The course included 2 years in industry at Albright and Wilson Laboratories. His research project was on NMRS (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy) as an analytical tool. Professor Peter Mansfield of Nottingham University was also working on the same technology and he came up with the idea of using similar equipment to scan the human body for muscles and tissues. In 1971 Jeremy met him at Imperial College, London and they discussed ideas including their school days and both of them failing their 11+ exams. Peter tested equipment and began to perfect nuclear magnetic resonance body scanning, later dropping the word ‘nuclear' because of people's perception of this linking it to atomic bombs. Magnetic Resonance Image Scanning was born!