WITNEY’S first female GP, who celebrated her 100th birthday two months ago, has died.

Dr Hilary Macfarlane, who lived at Longlands Nursing Home, in Cassington, passed away in the early hours of Saturday.

She celebrated her 100th birthday on Sunday, December 6, above, with friends and family, including her 101-year-old cousin Gigi Looman, who travelled from London for the occasion.

Her daughter Sue Chapman, 72, from Eynsham, said: “She had the most fantastic life, she was an example to all of us.

“She had a very strong personality, but didn’t come across as strong. She was very kind and very caring.

“She was a very social person, she loved people and was the most fantastic mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

“She took such a great interest in all of us and everybody adored her.”

Dr Macfarlane was an only child, and grew up in London.

Her uncle was a surgeon, and her father trained as a doctor, although he become a Fleet Street journalist.

She trained at the Royal Free Hospital, at London University, and met her husband, Prof Gwyn Macfarlane — who developed the first effective treatment for haemophilia — while sailing.

They married in London in 1936, and moved to Downhill Farm, Hailey, when he took a job at Oxford’s Radcliffe Infirmary in 1940.

She was one of three doctors at the Witney practice and, in her spare time, was involved with the Women’s Institute, church, and Meals on Wheels, and was a governor at Hailey Road Primary School.

A mother of five, she gave up medicine to be a full-time mum.

In the 1970s, the couple retired to the Highlands of Scotland, where she helped her husband write biographies of Howard Florey, the developer of penicillin, and of its discoverer, Alexander Fleming.

He died in 1987, and Dr Macfarlane moved back to Oxfordshire, living in Newland Street, Eynsham, near her only daughter, Mrs Chapman.

Dr Macfarlane had 14 grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

Her funeral is being held at St Peter’s Church, in Cassington, on Monday at 11am.