David Edwards was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Stoke-on-Trent. He was born in Sutton on 27 July 1936, the son of Reginald William Edwards, a managing director, and Irene Bertha Grace née Coad. He was educated at King’s College School, Wimbledon, from which he won the Williams exhibition in natural sciences to Balliol College, Oxford. After qualifying, he did his house appointments at the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he was greatly influenced by A Elliot-Smith, J C Scott and R B Duthie. He went on to become a house surgeon at the Birmingham Accident Hospital and then a surgical registrar in Southampton and subsequently at the accident service at the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he became first assistant in 1971. He was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the North Staffs Royal Infirmary, Stoke-on-Trent, where he set up a children’s orthopaedic clinic and regularly visited schools for disabled children. In 1973 he was appointed as a senior clinical lecturer in the department of traumatic orthopaedic surgery at the University of Keele, where he helped to set up a chair in traumatic orthopaedics and was clinical director of the locomotor directorate across three hospital sites. He married Ann Gurney Bradley in 1966. They had one son, John (who became a consultant thoracic surgeon in Chesterfield), and one daughter. Among his many activities he was a national race officer for the Royal Yacht Association and was appointed as a licensed reader in the Diocese of Lichfield in 1978. He died on 14 July 2008 leaving his widow, Ann, two children and four grandchildren.