Sven Svenson was a Swedish osteopath who established a prominent London practice, treating people from the world of sports, dance and acting — from Lester Piggott to Elizabeth Taylor.

Sven Gustav Svenson was born in Vadstena, Sweden, eldest child of an architect and builder. The boy was active in athletics and sports, particularly sailing, swimming, football, ice hockey, and wrote about sport for the local paper while studying medicine in Stockholm.

Newly qualified, he moved to Glasgow to join the practice of a Swedish doctor there, where he specialised in manipulative medicine. His interest was enhanced by a back injury he himself suffered while diving. After the war he studied osteopathathy at the British School in London and further in the US.

Among his early patients was the young ballerina Beryl Grey. Being in Chicago to visit an aunt when the Sadler’s Wells Ballet arrived there in late 1949, on its first American tour, he went to see her dance Swan Lake, then followed her to the company’s engagement in Toronto. They fell in love and married a few months later, whereupon Svenson gave up his plan to become Sweden’s first osteopath and instead started a practice in London.

People from theatre, sport and dance, being prone to injury but needing full fitness, provided many of his patients and the success he quickly achieved is shown by the fact that they included Dame Merle Park, Elizabeth Taylor, Cecil Beaton, Anton Dolin, Charlton Heston, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, Leonide Massine, Ivor Novello and Lester Piggott, among many others.

It was not until 1980, when he was in his seventies, that he retired to Sussex, and even then he still treated a few patients until he became blind at age 94. Thereafter his wife, herself by then in her seventies, managed to maintain her continuing concern with ballet while also providing him with loving care.

Sven Svenson, osteopath, was born on May 22, 1907. He died on March 26, 2008, aged 100