Sean Michael O'Riordan was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Lincoln County Hospital and Grantham and Kesteven General Hospital. He was born in York on 3 August 1944, the eldest of three children of John Joseph O'Riordan, a psychiatrist, and Theresa Margaret O'Riordan née Markham, the daughter of a farmer. He was educated at Barlborough Hall, Derbyshire, and Mount St Mary's College, Sheffield. He then studied medicine at the London Hospital Medical College, gaining a scholarship to study for a BSc in anatomy. He qualified MB BS in 1968. He was a house physician at the London Hospital. Prior to his consultant appointments, he was a registrar in orthopaedic surgery at Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, and then a senior registrar at the London Hospital. In 1971 he spent 10 months in Ethiopia as a resident medical officer at the Gambo Leprosy Control and Rural Health Centre. Outside medicine, he was interested in golf and tennis. In July 1972 he married Ann Patricia Webb, a nurse. They had three children - Trish, Dee and Paul - and two grandchildren. Sean Michael O'Riordan died suddenly at his home on 2 May 2006, aged 61.