Eileen Crofton

Eileen Crofton was a doctor, campaigner and founding member of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). She played a significant role in raising awareness about the dangers of tobacco, ultimately resulting in the smoking ban.

Born in Liverpool, she studied medicine at Somerville College, Oxford, graduating in 1943. She joined the Royal Medical Corps in 1944, becoming a captain and was posted to County Down, where she met her future husband John Crofton.

They moved to Edinburgh in 1952, following her husband's appointment as professor of tuberculosis and lung disease at the University of Edinburgh.

While raising a family, she was appointed county medical officer of the Midlothian branch of the British Red Cross Society in 1963.

Later, she became an honorary research fellow in the University of Edinburgh's department of respiratory diseases and produced reports on the influence of smoking on mortality and the effects of chronic bronchitis.

In 1971 she helped to establish ASH, originally as part of the Royal College of Physicians. Two years later ASH Scotland was inaugurated with Eileen appointed its first medical director.

She was subsequently appointed to the World Health Organisation's expert committee on smoking, consistently campaigning for increased tobacco regulation.

She was awarded an MBE for services in public health in 1984.

Following her retirement, she wrote the critically-acclaimed Women of Royaumont: A Scottish Women's Hospital on the Western Front, which was published in 1997. She died in 2010.