Dan Mant
Dan Mant was born on 25 May 1984 at Guy’s Hospital, London, England, though he’s lived most of his life in West Sussex. After graduating from Lancaster University with a degree in English Literature, he caught the writing bug, dabbling in various genres and mediums, mostly sci-fi, horror, fantasy, historical fiction and all their various mash ups. About a decade ago he first sat down to read his grandfather Professor Keith Mant’s memoirs, which had already been collecting dust for far too long, editing them off and on ever since. He likes to think working on this has given him a greater understanding and appreciation his grandfather, an all too humble man to say the least. The irony that the first book he will have published is non-fiction is not lost on him.
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Professor Keith Mant was born on 11 September 1919 in Purley, England. After attending Denstone College, where he excelled in rugby and shooting, he went on to medical school at St Mary’s Hospital, London via a rugby exhibition in 1938. Upon qualifying in 1943, he continued working at St Mary’s as a House Officer in the Obstetrics and Gynaecological Unit.
In January 1944 he was called up, subsequently joining the Royal Army Medical Corps. After an abortive part in the D Day Landings, he worked in various military hospitals in England, France and Belgium until the end of the War and several German hospitals afterwards.
In November 1945 he was appointed to the pathology section of the War Crimes Group, North West Europe, investigating the deaths of Allied airmen, the exhumations later serving as the basis for his MD Thesis. From 1946 – August 1948, his role was expanded under the War Crimes Group’s Special Medical Section, investigating medical experiments perpetrated at various concentration camps, interviewing numerous SS doctors, staff and inmates, gathering a wealth of evidence later used at the Nuremburg and Hamburg trials.
Upon returning to England, Keith Mant worked with Professor Keith Simpson in the Forensic Medicine Department at Guy’s Hospital, London. Upon Simpson’s retirement in 1972, he succeeded him as Head of the Department, earning his Professorship in 1974, as well as becoming an honorary senior lecturer at King’s College and St Mary’s Medical Schools.
Professor Mant was often known for smoking cigars in lectures, even displaying actual murder weapons on occasion. He eventually retired in 1984.
In 1985, during one of his regular visits to the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Richmond, Virginia, he met and helped inspire the crime reporter and future novelist Patricia Cornwell.
Besides his interests in fishing and gardening, Professor Mant was also known for his cooking, though his wife, Heather, frowned upon him carving meat as he tended to treat it like an autopsy.
On 17th October 2000, Professor Mant died in his home in Walton on Thames.
