Timbrell Fisher was born at Bristol on 1 November 1887 the second son of Canon W H Fisher. He was educated at Clifton College, Bristol University, and St Bartholomew's Hospital qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma in 1911. He was a house officer at Bristol General Hospital and demonstrator of surgical anatomy in the University. He served in the RAMC as a surgical specialist in Belgium and France during the first world war, reaching the rank of Major; he was mentioned in despatches and won the Military Cross. He took the Fellowship in 1919, as soon as possible on returning to civilian work, and became surgeon in charge of outpatients at the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich. He was next appointed assistant surgeon in the surgical unit at University College Hospital and assistant orthopaedic surgeon at St Bartholomew's. Subsequently he became a consulting surgeon to the St John Clinic and Institute of Physical Medicine and to the Charterhouse Rheumatism Clinic, while his principal hospital appointment was as orthopaedic specialist in the Rheumatism Clinic at St Stephen's Hospital, Chelsea. After retiring from these posts he was a consultant surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions and a medical member of its appeal tribunal. When in 1935 the Royal College of Physicians appointed the National Committee on Chronic Rheumatic Diseases, Timbrell Fisher served on the preliminary committee and was elected to the classification and editorial sub-committees. His style was clear and simple and his writings were founded on his knowledge of pathology and his experience as a skilful orthopaedic manipulator in addition to his practice of the normal orthopaedic operations of his time. His books included *Internal derangements of the knee joint*, 1924 and *Manipulative surgery*, 1925, which recognised the work of 'bone-setters' within legitimate limits, while most surgeons still considered it a form of quackery. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1920-21 and 1921-22, and maintained his interest in the Museum and Library to the end of his career. At the British Medical Association he was a Vice-President of the Section of Orthopaedics at the Annual Meeting of 1936. He was a Commander of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, and was elected a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1948. He was a modest, kindly, co-operative man, and an excellent teacher of graduate students. His chief reaction was country walking, which he enjoyed particularly in Somerset, on the Quantocks and Exmoor. Fisher's first wife died in 1944 leaving two sons and a daughter. He married secondly in 1949, Edith, widow of J B Clive of Brilingham Manor, Pershore; Mrs Timbrell Fisher died in July 1967 and he died on 10 October 1967, aged seventy-nine and survived by his three children. He had practised at 39 Devonshire Place, with a country home at Albury, near Much Hadham, in Hertfordshire, but later moved to Maidstone, Kent.