Born at Brading, Isle of Wight, on March 23rd, 1870, the son of Edward Canny Ryall, MRCS, of Ennis, who traced his descent from one of Cromwell's officers settled in Ireland; he had served through the Crimean and the Indian Mutiny in the Army Medical Service, dying in 1880. He married Elizabeth, daughter of William Phayer, JP. Charles Ryall studied at Dublin University, Westminster and King's College Hospitals, and in Paris engaged in post-graduate study. He was then appointed House Surgeon to the Cancer Hospital, and such was the impression made on the governing body of the Hospital by his energy, ability, and sagacity, that, having become FRCS, he was elected Surgeon. It was a time when, under antiseptic methods to ensure asepsis, the larger operations for cancer were being extended in the period preceding the development of radiological treatment. Although many of the cases admitted to the Cancer Hospital were already essentially inoperable, yet great relief followed the reduction of sepsis, and such palliative operations as colostomy and gastrostomy. Ryall gained a reputation as an operating surgeon upon cancer of the breast, uterus, tongue, and abdominal organs. Besides, as Surgeon to the Bolingbroke Hospital he had opportunities of practising general surgery, and as Surgeon to the Gordon Hospital, experience in rectal surgery. He was also Surgeon to the Lock Hospital and Rescue Home, and to the Leatherhead Cottage Hospital. He became the leader of Irish medical graduates practising in England, and the champion of special and non-teaching hospitals. With that predominant position he was returned at the head of the poll to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1914. At the commencement of the War in 1914 he volunteered for medical service among the Belgians, but the German advance forced him to return to London, where the need for his services had been increased by the absence of younger colleagues. He served on the staff of King George V's Hospital, and various hospitals for officers. He was further placed on the Advisory Medical Board for National Service and made Chief Assessor of the Board of Medical Assessors to Appeal Tribunals, working especially hard during 1917 and 1918. His work was recognized by the conferment of the CBE and subsequently of knighthood. Ryall was a genial, generous-hearted Irishman, who always used a marked Irish brogue. In his house at 62 Harley Street and at his country house, Aldenham Corner, Radlett, Lady Ryall and he entertained largely and engagingly. Mountaineering, golfing, fishing, and shooting found in him an enthusiast. The large partridge shoot near Radlett was remarkably good, considering its position. He was busy after the War as Chairman of Committees of the College Council, President of the Sub-section of Proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine, Member of the Committee on the Physical Education of Girls, Hon Secretary of the British Gynaecological Society, Secretary for Great Britain and Ireland in an impending meeting of the International Surgical Society - all this in addition to his surgical work. He and Lady Ryall were on a holiday at Dornoch, and on the morning of his death he had sent invitations to his friends to shoot with him in Hertfordshire in the following week, when, at the luncheon table on September 5th, 1922, he was seized with angina pectoris and died almost at once. He was survived by his widow, Frances Mary, daughter of Thomas Collier, JP, of Alderley Edge. After his death Lady Ryall presented a sum of money to perpetuate his memory at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He had been a member of the Reform and other clubs. Publications: "Cases of Abdominal Hysterectomy." - *Westminster Hosp Rep*, 1899, xi, 121; also *Brit Gynaecol Jour*, 1898-9, xiv-xv, *passim*. "Extensive Trans-sacral Excision of the Rectum." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1899, ii, 1085. "Syphilis of the Tongue and Cancer." - *Clinical Jour*, 1907, xxx, 139.