“…This concern was seen in his very first paper, Medical Care in a South African Township, which described the efforts he and his co‐authors were making to provide medical care to Alexandra township, an African community of 80 000, with a health budget of £1 per person, compared with £28 per person in adjacent Johannesburg. Recognising that social forces are especially prominent in the perinatal period, the next large research venture, undertaken jointly with Zena Stein and published towards the end of their 4 years of intense clinical work in Alexandra, was a description of their obstetrical results, with a special focus on maternal mortality and how it might be prevented …”