Alec Antony Lees was born at Walsall in 1890, and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1915. He had been studying at Cambridge and Birmingham, but interrupted the work for his degree to join the RAMC after holding a house appointment at the Birmingham General Hospital. He served with the 36th General Hospital on the Salonika front, and was mentioned in dispatches in 1917 and awarded the Military Cross in 1918. As soon as the war was over he went as a medical missionary to China where he worked from 1920 till 1931, except for an interval in 1925 when he returned home to obtain his Cambridge degree and the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. On his final return from China in 1931 he settled in a partnership at Dawlish, in South Devon, where he soon established a reputation for medical wisdom as well as surgical skill. For a while during the second world war he was the sole practitioner in the town, yet he was able to take part in the Home Guard and Red Cross duties in addition to his practice. With the advent of the National Health Service he was called upon to assist in the administration of the local medical services, and his committee work was much appreciated. In his full professional life Lees was well supported by his happy family and a profound Christian faith which found expression in his work for the Council of Churches. He died suddenly, while still active in body and mind, on 13 September 1971, and was survived by his wife, a daughter, and a son who became a doctor.