Maurice White Falloon was head of the department of surgery at Wanganui Hospital, New Zealand. He was born in Masterton, New Zealand, on 24 July 1921, the son of John William Archibald Falloon, a sheep farmer, and Grace née Miller, a farmer’s daughter. His father was the longstanding chairman of the county council at Wairarapa and chairman of the local electric power board at its inception. Maurice was educated at Wairarapa High School and Wellington College. He then went on to Otago University Medical School. During the second world war he served in the Otago University Medical Corps. He was a resident at Palmerston Worth Hospital, and then went to England, as senior surgical registrar at the Canadian Red Cross Memorial Hospital, Taplow. He then returned to New Zealand, as medical superintendent of Kaitaia Hospital. He was subsequently head of the department of surgery at Wanganui Hospital, where he stayed until his retirement. He was a past President of the Wanganui division of the BMA and a member of the Rotary Club of Wanganui. He married Patricia Brooking, a trainee nurse, in 1948. They had five children, two daughters and three sons, none of whom entered medicine. There are two grandchildren. He was a racehorse owner and breeder, and past president of the Wanganui jockey club. He was a keen golfer and interested in all forms of sport. He died on 25 July 2004.