Born 17 September 1879 at Romsey, Hants, eldest child of George Maughan Footner, solicitor, and his wife, *née* Rammell. He was educated at Marlborough College, at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and at St Thomas's Hospital where he won a university scholarship. He had a distinguished career in the medical school, tying with L E C Norbury for the Beaney scholarship in surgery and for the junior surgical house appointments. In 1907 Norbury was appointed surgical registrar at St Thomas's and Footner became resident surgical officer at the Royal Infirmary, Derby. In 1910 Footner entered the Sudan Medical Service and became medical inspector of the Upper Nile Province, when the civil medical service took charge from the Egyptian Army Medical Corps. His duty took him among the Dinka, Shilluk, and Nuer tribes, and he made his headquarters in the hospital ship *Lady Baker*, which he organized and helped to equip, with his base at Malakal. He was the first senior surgeon appointed at Khartoum, and the first lecturer on surgery at the Kitchener Medical School there. An attack by a wounded lion left him with an ankylosed knee, and he retired in 1928. Footner married in 1928 Emily C H Grylls, who survived him with two sons and a daughter. He settled first at Thornley, Bereweeke Road, Winchester, and later at Carn Galva, St Ives, Cornwall. During the second world war he served on local medical boards and assisted his neighbours in general practice. He died at Romsey on 16 May 1943, aged 63. Mrs Footner died on 5 January 1951 at Tregony, Winchester. To Footner is largely due the establishment of a first-class surgical tradition in the Sudan. He was of tall, spare, athletic figure. He had been an outstanding batsman in his college and hospital cricket elevens.