Born in Exeter on June 19th, 1885, the son of Richard Ley, of Exmouth. He was educated at Malvern and at the London Hospital, where he won the Obstetric Scholarship and Prize in 1907 and was Pathological Assistant. In 1910 he became House Surgeon at the Gloucester Royal Infirmary, proceeding thence to Queen Charlotte's Hospital, where he was successively Junior and Senior Resident Medical Officer during a period of eight months. This appointment determined his choice of a career. He became an enthusiastic obstetrician, and soon displayed much ability. In 1913 he was appointed Pathologist to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, holding this post till 1921, and in March, 1914, he became Obstetric Registrar and Tutor to Charing Cross Hospital. This appointment he held to within a short period of his death. Gordon Ley suffered from congenital valvular disease of the heart, and his physique was so low that he was totally rejected for military service during the Great War. Few men, however, worked harder than he did at home. Throughout the War he acted as voluntary Resident Medical Officer to the City of London Maternity Hospital, doing almost the entire work of this hospital from the beginning of 1917 onwards in the absence on military duty of his colleague. He also volunteered at the London Hospital, where two of the gynaecologists had been called away by war duty. Here he had charge of beds, did the work of the Obstetric Registrar and Tutor during the greater part of the War, and acted also as Pathological Assistant. At the same time he took charge of the Jewish Maternity Home in Underwood Street as Consulting Obstetrician, was on the rota of the Lady Howard de Walden Maternity Home for Officers' Wives, and lectured from 1914-1918 twice a week at the Midwives' Institute, continuing these lectures to the time of his death. He was appointed Gynaecologist to the Hampstead General Hospital in 1918, and in 1919 Assistant Obstetric Surgeon to the City of London Maternity Hospital. These two appointments he held at the time of his death. In addition to this record of hospital work, Gordon Ley found time for original research, and he left a short series of admirable papers on clinical and pathological problems connected with obstetrics. His first considerable effort was the collation of 100 cases of full-term extra-uterine pregnancy from the literature, with two original cases upon which he had operated himself. Two years later he published an able communication on accidental haemorrhage, advancing cogent reasons for regarding this condition as toxaemic, and from the results of microscopic examination of the uteri removed for this condition he was able to offer an explanation of the mechanism of production of the bleeding. He also devoted much attention to the subject of carcinoma of the ovary. In 1919 he had communicated his preliminary results to the Section of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the Royal Society of Medicine, and in continuance of his work had undertaken to open a discussion on "Primary Carcinoma of the Ovary" at the Glasgow Meeting of the British Medical Association, when his tragic death occurred. On the morning of June 3rd, 1922, he was travelling on professional business to Paris in a French aeroplane. After passing the coast-line, and when two or three miles off Folkestone, the machine suddenly dived into the sea from a height of 1500 feet. The pilot and both passengers lost their lives. Dr G H Varley, of Cadogan Place, W, who was on board the Boulogne packet, was at once rowed to the wrecked aeroplane, and then recognized the body of his dead colleague. After an inquest held at Folkestone on June 6th, where the brother of Gordon Ley, Dr R L Ley, of Great Yarmouth, identified the deceased, the funeral took place in Folkestone churchyard on the same afternoon. Publications: "Decidual Reaction in a Subperitoneal Fibromyoma of Uterus." - *Proc Roy Soc Med* (Sect Obst and Gynaecol), 1916-17, x, 137. "Fibromyo-lipoma of Corpus Uteri." - *Ibid*, 1913-14, vii, 150. "Two Cases of Full-time Extra-uterine Pregnancy with a Tabulated Abstract of 100 Cases from the Literature." - *Ibid*, 1918-19, xii, 140. "Primary and Secondary Carcinoma of Ovary." - *Ibid*, 1919-20, xiii, 95. "Utero-placental (Accidental) Haemorrhage." - *Jour Obst and Gynaecol*, 1921, xxviii, 69.