Born in India, Mary Pickford graduated in science from Bedford College, London, in 1924. While conducting pharmacological research part-time at UCL, with AJ Clarke and EB Verney, she trained in medicine and qualified in 1933. After junior clinical jobs, she took a post as physiology lecturer at Edinburgh University, where she studied oxytocin and anti-diuretic hormone in dogs. She gained a DSc in 1951 (Edinburgh) and later was given an Honorary DSc by the Heriot-Watt University. In 1954 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, in 1977 of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and in 1966 of the Royal Society of London. In 1966, she was the first woman to hold a chair in the Edinburgh Medical Faculty. She published extensively and in 1972 was appointed Special Professor of Endocrinology at Nottingham University.

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