Lucy Bryce was born in Lindfield, New South Wales. Her family were well respected importers in Melbourne and Lucy was educated at Merton Hall (Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School), and the University of Melbourne. She started doing a science course but changed to medicine, influenced by the need for doctors caused by the Great War.
After graduation she held training and research appointments at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI), Commonwealth Serum Laboratories and the Lister Institute in London, which became a mecca for those interested in blood groups and the processing of blood. She was appointed bacteriologist and serologist to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1928. The work was carried out in the WEHI, which was then responsible for all the diagnostic laboratory work of the hospital.
In 1929, a happy interaction between Lucy Bryce, the superintendent of the Hospital, Dr Eric Cooper, and Miss Philadelphia Robertson, secretary- general of the Australian Red Cross Society, eventually led by a series of steps to the development of the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service. In the first instance this was a panel of voluntary donors. Dr Lucy Bryce was their honorary medical officer, but in 1938, a Voluntary Blood Donors' Association of the Red Cross Society was formed with Dr Lucy Bryce as vice-president. At this time the WEHI, in conjunction with the Transfusion Service, commenced work on blood banking, and the shadows of World War II were now a great stimulus to the growth of the Service and early work on serum production. Dr Bryce was the central figure in these developments.
She left the Royal Melbourne Hospital laboratories in 1934, Dr Hilda Gardner, her assistant, taking over her position. She then commenced a private practice in Collins Street. Apart from her war work in blood transfusion, she was appointed pathologist in 115 (Heidelberg) Military Hospital with the rank of major. She also developed a close relationship with the Queen Victoria Hospital and was honorary director of pathology to the Hospital from 1934, until her death.
She became chairman of the Divisional Blood Transfusion Service Committee in 1944, holding the post till death. She retired from the post of honorary director of the Blood Transfusion Service in 1950, after 25 years at the organisational helm. She was quiet, almost unobtrusive, with a keen sense of what was appropriate. She managed to inspire many others and always knew where to muster appropriate help. Her enthusiasm and talent inspired many. She was succeeded as honorary director by a full-time director, Dr Jack Morris, but she still exerted a guiding influence. Her book 'An Abiding Gladness', published in 1965 by Georgian House, Melbourne, gives an insight into her detailed knowledge of the growth of transfusion in Australia from both the scientific and the organisational points of view.
Awards and distinctions came to Lucy Bryce, none pleasing her more than honorary life membership of Red Cross in 1954. She was travelled, cultured and interested in art. But above all professional dedication was her guiding principle. Her great friend, Dr Ella McKnight, in 'Donor News' of September 1968, published after her death, wrote, 'She was a brilliant organiser with an amazing ability to work out plans down to the smallest detail. She had vision, generosity and humility'. Though crippled by a stroke for her last years, she remained a quiet and forceful contributor, loyal to Red Cross and its Transfusion Service till the end.