Alfred John Craig was born at Porta Maggiore, Vittoriosa, Malta, on 29 May 1909. He was the fourth child and fourth son of John Craig, Chief Clerk of HM Dockyard, Malta and Sophie née Gatt. He started his education at HM Dockyard School, Malta, one of the best at the time. In due course he was admitted to the Royal University of Malta, where he obtained the BSc in 1927 and graduated MD in 1931 as first student in his course. He was hence awarded a Government Travelling Scholarship which enabled him to go to the United Kingdom on the first of a long series of visits. Over a period of two years he worked at the London Hospital, Wimbledon Cottage Hospital and Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In 1933 he returned to Malta to work as first assistant to Professor P P Debono, then Professor of Surgery and first Maltese holder of the FRCS. Other appointments he held during this time included that of demonstrator of anatomy at the University and medical officer to St Edward's College. In 1938 Alfred Craig returned to the United Kingdom for a long spell, no doubt with the encouragement of Professor Debono, who influenced him in many ways. In the following year he obtained the FRCS. During the first part of the war he was at Mile End Hospital, London El, where he acted as senior surgeon for some time. Indeed he was specially commended for his work on air raid casualties here. Later he was surgeon at Southport Infirmary where he did the work of three surgeons who were with the RAMC. In 1944 he was at the Wingfield Morris Orthopaedic Hospital, Oxford, where he helped with the Normandy casualties and where he was preparing for his return to Malta. On his appointment as the first lecturer in orthopaedic surgery at the Royal University of Malta in 1945 he was given the task of building and organizing an orthopaedic department from scratch. This had become urgent in view of the hundreds of victims of the 1943 and subsequent epidemics of anterior poliomyelitis, now happily extinct in the Maltese Islands. The precepts and example of Sir Herbert Seddon, Professor Trueta and Professor Girdlestone were a great help and soon John Craig, as he liked to be called, had a first class orthopaedic department, the pride of the hospital and the envy of the other departments. In 1951 he succeeded Professor Debono in the Chair of Surgery at the Royal University of Malta and as senior surgeon to the government. The fine qualities that made him a renowned surgeon in his own country and the influence that surgeons like Professor Debono himself, Professor Grey Turner, Sir James Learmonth in the earlier years, and later Sir Clifford Naunton Morgan and Sir Stanford Cade had exerted on him at various times now bore fruit. An already well developed department of surgery was geared to the needs of modern surgery. The carefulness and meticulous attention to detail that characterised his surgery were also features of the care that he lavished on his patients, as also of his teachings. His unstinted capacity for work drew an enthusiastic cooperation from all in his department, though his standards were high and discipline strict. His patients had the utmost faith in him. His natural love of children, fostered by the years he spent treating deformed and crippled children, helped considerably in making paediatric surgery almost his pet speciality and putting it on sure foundations. On his retirement in 1969 he was appointed Emeritus Professor of Surgery. In 1957 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem. In 1966 he was made a Knight of Magistral Grace of the Sovereign Military Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta. Between 1950 and 1962 he was civilian surgeon at David Bruce Military Hospital, Malta, whereupon he was appointed consultant in surgery to the Royal Navy. He was a Corresponding Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and a member of the Editorial Committee of the *British Journal of Surgery*. He was Membre Titulaire of the Société Internationale de Chirurgie and a Fellow of the British Orthopaedic Association. In Malta he had been sometime President of the Malta Branch of the British Medical Association and first President of the Association of Surgeons and Physicians of Malta. A shy man with a dry humour, he preferred the company of his family during his all too few periods of rest, but he enjoyed social occasions on a small scale. He had very little time for hobbies in later years but he could be noticed, in between cases, reading some philosophical treatise or a book on mathematics or history. He liked to relax listening to orchestral music or going to the ballet or opera. He enjoyed travelling, especially to England for which he had an abiding love. On 10 May 1941 he married Emily White from Yorkshire; they had one son and four daughters. Professor Craig was taken suddenly ill while driving his car on 5 October 1970, crashed into a wall, and died from his multiple injuries. Publications: Space and time. *Athenaeum Melitensis*, 1926, 13, 21. Brucellosis myelopathy. (with W Ganado) *J Bone jt Surg* 1958, 40A, 1380. The logic of surgery. *St Luke's Hospital Gazette*, 1970, 5, 3-31. Cases of renal tuberculosis: Joint meeting with the Moynihan Surgical Club at Malta Medical School, May 1969.