Bewley was born Beulah Rosemary Knox on 2 September 1929 in a Protestant family in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, the daughter of Ina Knox, who came from a wealthy family, and John Knox, who worked for the Ulster Bank. Aged 14 she became a boarder at Dublin's Alexandra College. Aged five, Bewley decided that she wanted to become a doctor, and went on to qualify as a doctor at Trinity College Dublin in 1953. Bewley worked in paediatrics and preventative medicine for fifteen years, before undertaking a Master of Science degree in social medicine at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where she was the only woman in the class.
Bewley BR, Bland JM. Smoking and respiratory symptoms in two groups of schoolchildren. Preventive Medicine 5, 63-69.
Bewley BR, Bland JM. Academic performance and social factors related to cigarette smoking by schoolchildren. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine 31, 18-24.
Bewley BR, Bland JM. The child's image of a young smoker. Health Education Journal 37, 236-241.
Banks MH, Bewley BR, Bland JM, Dean JR, Pollard VM. A long term study of smoking by secondary schoolchildren. Archives of Disease in Childhood 53, 12-19.
Bland JM, Bewley BR, Pollard V, Banks MH. Effect of children's and parents' smoking on respiratory symptoms. Archives of Disease in Childhood 53, 100-105.
Bewley, B.R., Murray, M., & Johnson, M.R.D.. Smoking by Derbyshire schoolchildren. Finnish Journal of Social Medicine, 15: 197-203.
Bland JM, Bewley BR, Banks MH. Cigarette smoking and children's respiratory symptoms: validity of questionnaire method. Revue d'Epidemiologie et Sante Publique 27, 69-76.
Bewley BR, Johnson MRD, Bland JM, Murray M. Trends in children's smoking. Community Medicine 2, 186-189.
Johnson, M.R.D., Murray, M., Bewley, B.R., & Clyde, D.C.. Social class, parents, children and smoking. Bulletin of International Union against Tuberculosis , 57: 258 262.
Banks MH, Bewley BR, Bland JM. Adolescent attitudes to smoking: their influence on behaviour. International Journal of Health Education 24, 39-44.
Murray, M., Swan, A.V., Johnson, M.R.D., & Bewley, B.R.. Some factors associated with increased risk of smoking by children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 24: 223 232.
Murray, M. Swan, A.V., Bewley, B.R., & Johnson, M.R.D.. The development of smoking during adolescence. International Journal of Epidemiology 12: 185 192.
Johnson MRD, Bewley BR, Banks MH, Bland JM, Clyde DV. Schools and Smoking: school features and variations in cigarette smoking by children and teachers. British Journal of Educational Psychology 55, 34-44.
Other publications
Quotes
"As early as 1902 Ballantyne had found an increase in the abortion rate in French and Austrian women working in tobacco factories."
"There certainly was discrimination. They used to look at you and say she is married, or she has got children and if you were not married, they were expecting you to get married."
"Promotion by tobacco companies may then be seen for what it is—the ‘pushing' of a dangerous drug."
Personal life
In Bewley's fourth year at Trinity College Dublin she met a young doctor, Thomas Bewley, from a Quaker family that owned Bewley's coffee shops. They married in 1955, and had five children. Their second daughter, born with Down Syndrome, defied early expectations regarding her health, and lived until the age of 44. She was survived by four children and her husband. Her daughter Susan Bewley upset her mother when she came out as a lesbian, but went on to become a medical professor, and to write her mother's memoirs.
