George Holden Buckley, son of a doctor, was born in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire on 3 February 1896, and was educated at Blackpool Grammar School and Manchester University. His medical studies were interrupted by the first world war, during which he served in the Royal Engineers. After demobilization he resumed his studies, and graduated MB ChB, in 1921. After holding junior appointments in the Manchester Royal Infirmary he took the FRCS Edinburgh in 1925. He was greatly pleased by his election to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, ad eundem, in 1949. He joined the staff of the Victoria Hospital, Blackpool, at that time still virtually a cottage hospital, as an honorary consulting surgeon in 1927, and when he retired in 1961 he had been for many years the senior consulting surgeon to the Blackpool and Fylde hospital group. A superb technical surgeon, he devoted himself to raising the standard of surgery in his locality, and it was largely due to his foresight that the Victoria Hospital developed into a large specialist hospital. He was a past-President of the Provincial Surgical Club, with which he travelled widely, and was an original member of the Central Consultants and Specialists Committee which negotiated the terms of the National Health Services Act in 1948. He took a lively interest in the Blackpool and Fylde Division of the British Medical Association, and was Chairman in 1938-39. He served throughout his active life on the Management Committee of the Victoria Hospital, Blackpool, where his portrait now hangs in a position of honour as a tribute to his unique contribution to its progress. In spite of the demands of a large consulting practice, he contrived to serve the community in other ways. He was appointed a magistrate in 1950, and on moving his home to Islay Road, Lytham St Annes in 1957 became chairman of the local health committee. In 1928 he married Eileen Heyworth of Rossall Beach, who survived him with their son and daughter. Buckley died at his home after a short illness on 17 November 1967, aged 71.