Gordon Goodhart was born into a distinguished medical family for his father was the famous Sir James Goodhart, Bart., of Guy’s Hospital. His mother was Emma Sandford, daughter of William Bennett, J.P., of Ashgrove, co. Hereford. He was educated at Westminster School, Trinity College, Cambridge, and Guy’s Hospital, where he was in succession a house physician, Gull research student, demonstrator in pathology and senior assistant bacteriologist. He then worked for a time under Professor Aschoff at Freiberg before becoming clinical pathologist to University College Hospital in the team headed by Professor Boycott that included Pryce-Jones, with whom he had worked at Guy’s Hospital.
He did research with Bolton on gastric secretion, but became attracted to the new developments in haematology. His particular interest in the application of laboratory findings to clinical medicine made him the ideal choice to direct the first London County Council Group Laboratory at St. Mary Abbot’s Hospital, which provided pathology facilities for a large number of hospitals in the west of London. He built up a first class service. In 1939, under the Emergency Medical Service, he transferred most of his equipment and many of his staff to its Central Laboratory at Slough. In 1945 he returned to St. Mary Abbot’s, remaining there until his retirement less than a year before his death.
Goodhart was a bluff, good-humoured man with a fund of stories built round his experiences. Essentially a clinician with a wide knowledge of all aspects of pathology, he had a flair for going straight to the heart of a problem. As a result he was an excellent teacher whose opinion was valued by all his colleagues. He was at various times president of the section of pathology of the Royal Society of Medicine, of the Medical Society of London, and of the Association of Clinical Pathologists. In 1914 he married Alice Stransham, daughter of Lt-Gen. W. P. La Touche. They had two daughters and one son.
Richard R Trail
[Brit.med.J., 1948, 2, 271-2; Guy's Hosp. Gaz., 1948, 62, 238-9; J.Clin.Path., 1948, 1, 320-21; Lancet, 1948, 2, 165 (p), 202.]