Benjamin William Rycroft was born in a small village in Yorkshire in 1902. In his youth he learned to play the organ well enough to do so in his parish church and thus was mildly attracted to the ministry as a profession. Instead, he studied medicine in St Andrew's University (1919-1924) and after qualifying, he started general practice in Bradford, Yorkshire. His interest turned to ophthalmology and at great expenditure of time and energy he took the Diploma in Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery in 1929, three years after his marriage to Mary Rhodes, who survived him. He continued his practice in Bradford, travelling up to London on week-ends to study for his Fellowship in the Royal College of Surgeons which he attained in 1931. He then moved to Taplow and London where he worked as a clinical assistant at St George's Hospital and later at Moorfields Eye Hospital. About this time he became intrigued with the problem of transplantation of the cornea, which became the main interest of his professional life and in which he excelled. His skill, dedication and industry, combined in an aggressively honest, yet kindly character, earned him at this early age increasing recognition and support of his colleagues. He became a Hunterian Professor and Leverhulme Scholar at the Royal College of Surgeons, a Lang Research Scholar at Moorfields and Middlemore Prizeman of the British Medical Association. He was associated with the medical staff of the Maidenhead Hospital, King George's Hospital, Ilford, the East Ham Memorial Hosptial and the Royal Eye Hospital in London. These were happy and fruitful years of almost ferocious professional activity, during which his private practice increased prodigiously and brought him, in addition to the admiration of his colleagues, the devotion of his patients. Behind him stood Mary and his two sons, and the security of a happy home. His remarkable aptitude for clinical research began about this time and soon became manifest. His first paper on keratoplasty was published in 1935. When war broke out in 1939 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving first in Northern Ireland, then in North Africa and Italy where he acted as chief consultant in ophthalmology to the British Army with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. On the way to his post in North Africa the hospital ship, *Windsor Castle* in which he was being transported, was sunk by an aerial torpedo off Oran. His son Peter (see next entry), wrote in a short biography of his father "Fortunately, he was rescued in his pyjamas by the destroyer, *Eggesford* (Hunt Class), but he never forgot the drama of the hours in the sea awaiting rescue, and the panic that preceded it. He visited the village of Eggesford in Devon in later years, and attended a meet of hounds at the local pub and gave thanks." Towards the end of the war he wrote his first book *A manual for Field Officers*, which was widely used by the Army. At the end of the war he was awarded the OBE and resumed his civilian practice in London. Although, like most of his colleagues, he disliked socialized medicine for many cogent reasons, he adapted himself to the times and was appointed consultant ophthalmic surgeon to Park Prewitt Emergency Medical Service Hospital, near Basingstoke, to Moorfields, and to the Canadian War Memorial Hospital at Taplow. His old patients had impatiently awaited his return from military service and began by the hundreds to rejoin his practice, which had over 15,000 patients on the register at the time of his death. In 1945, he was asked by Sir Archibald Mclndoe, famous for his successful plastic surgery on mutilated and burned pilots at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, to establish an eye department within the unit. With the birth of the Corneo-Plastic Unit at East Grinstead, Rycroft really gathered momentum in his work. "Corneal grafts, lacrimal surgery, lid surgery particularly ptosis, surgery of the socket and orbit claimed his full attention," said his son Peter, "and his publications proved that such a specialized centre had much to contribute to general ophthalmic surgery. His students came from many lands and appreciated the personal training with a small but dedicated team, in a way that is impossible to achieve in a large centre." In 1952 he was mainly responsible for initiating a national campaign, using modern methods of communications, for a corneal grafting act. The campaign was supported by Sir Cecil Wakeley, then President of the Royal College of Surgeons; by the South East Regional Hospital Board; his medical colleagues, the press and the public. The Act was passed in 1952 and with it the first United Kingdom Eye Bank was established in East Grinstead. It became an immediate success. The Act later (1961) was broadened to include other human tissue and is now known as The Human Tissue Act. Thus it can be claimed with justice, that Benjamin Rycroft paved the way for legal methods of obtaining, preserving and utilizing, all parts of the human body for purposes of transplantation in the British Isles. In 1955 a book appeared under his editorship, *Corneal grafts*. Four of the sixteen chapters were written by Rycroft, the others by different international authorities on the subject. It was well received by ophthalmic surgeons everywhere, and was the first book of its kind to be published in the English language. It also revealed Rycroft as a lucid, even exciting, writer and a sound editor. By this time he had published, either alone or in collaboration, eleven noteworthy contributions on the subject of corneal grafts. In the spring of 1959 at East Grinstead he launched the First Corneo-Plastic Conference. It was financed by funds given by grateful patients and businessmen who admired his enthusiasm and work. The Conference was successful, and attracted a good audience of British and many foreign ophthalmologists, who departed impressed and stimulated by the work they had seen and shared. It is certain that the good reception that Rycroft had with this first conference determined him to plan for a second one in 1967, which he did not live to enjoy. The following year, 1960, he was knighted, an honour that pleased hundreds of friends, colleagues and patients. He was rightly proud of this great honour that he so richly deserved. The Fourth International Course of Ophthalmology of the Barraquer Institute was held in Barcelona, Spain, April 28-May 6, 1965. Sir Benjamin Rycroft, an old friend of the Barraquer family, served as the honorary president. On his return to England he became ill and was unable to go to Chicago as a guest speaker of the Chicago Ophthalmological Society. However he recovered sufficiently to give the 1965 Doyne Memorial Lecture before the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress in July. His subject was "The Corneal Graft - Past, Present and Future." His lecture is a brilliant review, almost a monograph on the subject. It is noteworthy for the first part in which he covered the history of corneal grafting, a subject that had deeply interested him very early in his work. He took particular delight in his discovery, with the help of Lord Brock, of the fact that Astley Cooper on April 9, 1817 performed the first recorded free skin graft in England, and in the presence of Franz Reisinger, of Germany. Reisinger is generally considered to be the first surgeon to transplant successfully, a human cornea (1818). Following his visit to Guy's Hospital, he said that "This case (Cooper's) gave me excellent encouragement to attempt similar experiments with the cornea..." The first quarter of 1966 was spent in travel and lecturing for the most part in the United States. The rest of the year he devoted to his work as the clinical director of the Pocklington Eye Transplantation Research Unit at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, which he was instrumental in founding in 1964, as well as working with the Corneo-Plastic Unit in East Grinstead and in his large private practice. Meanwhile he was busy planning for the Second International Comeo-Plastic Conference to be held in July, 1967 and the First South African International Ophthalmological Symposium in 1968. He did not live to complete his leadership in these two important international events for he died suddenly of coronary occlusion on March 29, 1967. Benjamin Rycroft was a person who loved life with gusto and frankly rejoiced in his success. In addition to his scientific work, he relished country living on his small farm, Bishop's Lodge, near Windsor. Here he raised fine cattle, hunted, took a leading part in horse shows, played the organ for his pleasure in St George's Chapel, Windsor, and his piano at home. He was a lay officer of the Chapel, and took delight in showing its many treasures, of which he was very knowledgeable, to overseas visitors, who often were not aware of his distinction as an ophthalmic surgeon. He trained a good number of the young farmers of the area in animal husbandry and encouraged the local farm and garden shows and study groups. He was an enthusiastic fisherman. He cultivated fine roses and was proud that he was given new varieties by growers to try out before they were put on the market. His cup of life was full to the top and few drops of it were wasted.