Born in 1907 at Alton, Hampshire, the son of Otto Vaughan Payne MB BCh, he was educated at Sherborne School and St John's College, Cambridge, and took second-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos, part I, 1929. He qualified in 1932 from Guy's Hospital, where he was demonstrator of anatomy and physiology. After taking the Fellowship in 1935 and the MCh degree in 1936, he joined the partnership of Sir Joseph Skevington KCVO, FRCS and James Gaymer Jones FRCS at Windsor, and was appointed surgeon to the King Edward VII Hospital in 1939. During the war of 1939-45 he was an adviser in surgery at Air Headquarters, India, with the rank of Wing Commander RAF. After the war he returned to Windsor and was appointed surgeon to hospitals at Maidenhead, Staines, Egham, Windlesham, and Iver, and to the new Canadian Memorial Hospital at Taplow. He was President of the Windsor and District Medical Society in its jubilee year 1949-50. His right arm was amputated in 1952, but he continued to practise as a consultant. Vaughan Payne's character was gentle, kind and humane; he was devoted to country pursuits: gardening, shooting, and fishing, and was endowed with natural deftness of hand. He lived at 17 Osborne Road, Windsor, and died in hospital on 10 December 1953 aged 46, survived by his wife and three children.