Contraceptive pill pioneer leaves Cambridge £45m

Cambridge University has received its biggest legacy yet, £45m from a scientist who helped to develop the contraceptive pill. Dr Herchel Smith, an organic chemist who died aged 76 in December, had donated £15m to his 800-year-old alma mater in his lifetime.

Dr Smith had helped to develop the synthetic steroids that enabled manufacture of a cost-effective birth-control pill and made his fortune as the holder of more than 800 patents.

His bequest will pay for professorships in subjects including pure mathematics, physics, biochemistry and molecular genetics. The exact amount bequeathed is still being calculated, but Professor Sir Alec Broers, the university's vice-chancellor, has confirmed it will be at least £45m.

Dr Smith was educated at state schools and joined Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1942 aged 17 to study natural sciences. After taking a double first, he studied for a doctorate at Cambridge and continued his research at Oxford and at Manchester. While a lecturer in organic chemistry at Manchester University, he devised new approaches to the synthesis of steroids, which he patented before he went to work for an American pharmaceutical company.

Among his breakthroughs was the development of a cheap method of making a synthetic steroid called norgestrel, which formed the basis of the contraceptive pill. Earlier birth-control pills used hormones extracted from natural sources, usually Mexican yams, which were prohibitively expensive. Although Dr Smith did not invent oral contraceptives he was the first to find a cost- effective way of producing them. The first oral contraceptive made entirely of synthetic hormones was put on the market in 1968.

Holding the patents for his work meant Dr Smith soon became a multimillionaire. He retired in 1973 and spent the rest of his life as a philanthropist, donating millions to universities and research groups. His generosity has already paid for a purpose-built research laboratory for medicinal chemistry near Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1990. Harvard University received substantial donations and will benefit by another $100m.

In his retirement Dr Smith designed an ocean-going yacht called Synthesis in which he cruised the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and the North Sea. He died in his sleep at his home in America. In his will he requested that his ashes be scattered on Plymouth Sound. Dr Smith was born in Plymouth in 1925.

A Cambridge University spokeswoman said the university had received many substantial donations, but Dr Smith's was believed to be the highest by an individual.

Anthony Tootal, deputy director of the university's development office, said: "It is a very generous amount. We thought he might leave us something in his will because of the donations during his lifetime, but we had no idea it would be quite as much as this. The money is very specifically targeted at the areas that Dr Smith was interested in. He was very clear what he wanted to do with the money."

Larger sums have been donated to Cambridge by charitable foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by the Microsoft founder and his wife, which created a £140m trust fund to send Gates Scholars to the university every year.