Frank Alexander

Prof Frank Alexander FRSE MRCVS (1917–1998) was a 20th century British veterinarian who served as Dean of the Dick Vet School from 1970 to 1974.

He was born on 18 March 1917 the son of Sydney Alexander in New Mills, Cheshire (now part of Derbyshire). He was educated at Furness Vale Primary School then Buxton College from 1927 to 1935. In 1935 he began studies at the Dick Vet school in Edinburgh.

In 1940 he was elected a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. He then undertook a postgraduate degree in Pharmacology at Edinburgh University funded by the Agricultural Research Council, under Prof Alfred Joseph Clark FRS. His PhD thesis was one of the world's first studies on Pharmacokinetics (January 1944). Prof Clark died during his supervision of Alexander and was replaced by Sir John Gaddum FRS.

In February 1944 (during the Second World War) he joined the Royal Army Veterinary Corps and served in the Middle East. In 1945 this placed him ideally to take on the chair in Pharmacology at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. In 1947 he returned to Britain and to his alma mater at the Dick Vet to study the physiology of the equine digestive system. He also did work for the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen under Sir David Cuthbertson. In 1952 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Pharmacology at the Dick Vet, which by then was part of Edinburgh University.

In 1961 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were

In 1968 he was created Professor of Veterinary Pharmacology at Edinburgh University. He delivered the Sir Frederick Smith Lecture for that year. In 1970 he was promoted to Dean of the Veterinary Faculty at Edinburgh (then based at Summerhall) in place of Alexander Robertson.

He retired in 1984 and was succeeded as Dean by Ainsley Iggo. Alexander died peacefully in Edinburgh on 4 March 1998 aged 80.

• Experimental Study on the Digestive Tract of the Horse (1954)
• An Introduction to Veterinary Pharmacology (1960)

Alexander was one of twenty "shadow portraits" created in the Summerhall building of the college, depicting former Principals. The portraits are now in the Easter Bush buildings.

He was married to Peggy Reedie (d.1984). They had no children.