Born in London on 12 May 1898 the son of Marriott Edwin Nicholls he was educated at the City of London School, Clare College, Cambridge and St George's Hospital, London. His undergraduate studies were interrupted by the first world war, during which he enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers at the age of seventeen and served with them from 1915-1919. After demobilization in 1919 with the rank of Captain he returned to his studies at Cambridge and graduated BA in 1921. For his clinical work he entered St George's Hospital qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma in 1923. He took the FRCS in 1926, graduated BCh two years later and obtained the MChir in 1932. While at St George's he was awarded the Allingham Scholarship in surgery in 1925 and the Sir Francis Laking Research Scholarship in 1928-9 and again in 1929-30. He held the usual junior surgical appointments including that of assistant curator of the Museum (1926), a post which until its abolition was a nursery in pathology for young aspirants to the surgical staff. In 1932 he was appointed to the consultant staff of St George's and soon established himself as a successful surgeon and a popular and lucid teacher. He was also consultant to the Royal Chest and the Belgrave Children's Hospitals and general surgeon to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Later his interests centred on genito-urinary surgery. His reputation in this field was recognised by his appointment to serve on the Council of the British Association of Urological Surgeons, and later by his election as President of the Section of Urology of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1960-1. He was Dean of the Medical School from 1936-1956 - a very long spell by any standards. This record is notable in two directions, first his twenty years of office, whereas the service of deans, then as now, does not usually exceed ten years; secondly it was then, and is even more so now, unusual for a practising surgeon to be dean of a London teaching hospital. His work as Dean was early interrupted by the outbreak of the second world war. In characteristic fashion, he left his hospital career to serve in the RAMC for the next six years (1940-1946), first as Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of a surgical division, stationed for some time at Freetown, and later as Brigadier and consultant to the 14th Army, South-East Asia Command. He was appointed CBE in 1946. On demobilization, for the second time in his life, he returned to his duties as Dean and surgeon to the hospital. It was during the ten year period that followed (1946-1956) that he made his greatest contribution to his medical school, whose life and fortunes were reborn and recast as a direct result of his wisdom and diplomacy. In 1946 he found a position in which the future of the school and hospital were both uncertain. A new site for the rebuilding of the hospital was being sought and was finally designated by the Ministry of Health at Tooting in South London. The new project, however, had to be phased, and the site being some distance from the parent hospital at Hyde Park Corner presented problems of transport and accommodation for the students and of a division of duties for the teachers. He played an invaluable part in overcoming these difficulties. Synchronously he pursued a policy of academic development within the school. In this sphere he was the driving force behind the gradual evolution of a series of new university departments and their associated academic staffs, appointments which were later to become chairs, first in pathology and its allied subjects, and afterwards in medicine and surgery. Throughout this period he worked in the closest harmony with the Board of Governors, the university authorities and the Academic Council of the school. In 1956 when he relinquished his office as Dean he had transformed the loose situation he inherited into an integrated university unit of medical education of great potential. At this stage he did not forsake his academic associations, transferring his activities to become the first director of the surgical unit. Apart from the attributes of character essential to such achievements, he had a most engaging personality. He was without envy. He had a special élan and zest for life and good fellowship. Equipped as he was intellectually and blessed with a sense of fun always near the surface, he added authority, colour and gaiety to any gathering in which he found himself. He was a memorable figure, tall and slim, approachable, yet somewhat aloof. He inspired affection and not a little awe in students, and in his house-surgeons a respect and devotion which he returned. In committee he had a flair for sensing the strength or weakness of an argument and the gift of timing his own intervention at the most effective moment. He had the knack of lowering the temperature in a heated exchange and cutting short the discursive debater by some aptly humorous remark. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member, and for two years Chairman, of the Court of Examiners. In this post he was popular with colleagues and candidates alike. He was particularly quick to notice the nervous examinee and to get the best out of him or her. His fellow Members of the Court held him in such regard that, at the end of his term of office, they broke with tradition and made him a presentation of a silver cigarette box. In his private moments he was a keen sportsman and loved cricket and fishing and the countryside of Gloucestershire and Ireland. Although with the passing years he spent more recreation time on the river bank than on the cricket field, he remained a staunch supporter of the cricket club and actually played for the staff against the students when he was over sixty. There were many cricketers and others who recalled with wistful pleasure his genial hospitality at his country home in Northleach. He had a host of friends but was particularly remembered with affection by his students of both sexes to whom he was universally known as 'Nick'. In 1962 at the age of sixty-four he started a new career as professor of surgery in the University of Khartoum succeeding Julian Taylor. His skill as a teacher, his diagnostic acumen, his administrative ability and his innate friendliness were not lost upon his Sudanese students who held him in the warmest personal regard and admiration. He became an important member of the British colony exerting much influence in maintaining good relations during a most difficult period. His continuous hard work and service to his profession and his country were recognised by a knighthood in 1969. He died in Khartoum, the university city of his adoption, from coronary thrombosis on 25 August 1969, at the age of seventy-one.