Dr Jean Shanks was among the most distinguished pathologists in the country. She studied at St Hugh's College, Oxford, arriving in 1943, where she studied hard, intent and serious in her ambitions, then later becoming one of the first two women to become clinical students at the Middlesex Hospital.
Essentially a quiet and reserved person, she also had great charm and among friends could be the life and soul of the party, with a gift for friendship.
She became the master of her profession after many long years, eventually creating the largest clinical laboratory in the United Kingdom occupying four houses in Harley Street including her grandfather's old home. That year, 1985, the Jean Shanks Pathology Services signed an agreement with St Martin's Hospital Ltd taking over the pathology departments.
By the late 1980's the company was launched on the stock market, becoming the 'glamour shares' of the time. By 1987 Jean employed 274 staff handling 1,500 and 2,00 patients a day!
In 1976 she married Prince Yuri Galizine, with twenty-three years of life together.
Eventually Dr Shanks sold her company. Now she was able to indulge in benefiting many causes in her profession and the arts, such as endowing the William Walton Foundation and the Richard Lewis Trust, just two of the diverse examples of her generosity.
She loved collecting works of art, was a knowledgeable gardener, and studies the piano with all her usual determination.
A strong-minded woman of contradictions. Director of Britain's biggest private laboratory, but without a higher degree, she was a Thatcherite entrepreneur who always put her staff first, a princess who was a democrat, immensely successful, but with humility, equally at home in the laboratory or in high society.
A shrewd business woman of determination and highly intelligent, she was no poet or dreamer, she generously sponsored the Richard Lewis/Jean Shanks Trust. Because of Jean Shanks, many young singers over the years will get that essential help in their journey.
The Glyndebourne Festival Opera and The Royal Academy of Music both have reasons to be deeply grateful.
Jean Shanks died on Remembrance Day in 2000.
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