Gerald Waddington Beresford was born at Markyate, Hertfordshire, on 22 April 1886 and educated at Wyggeston School, Leicester, where he distinguished himself both academically, gaining the science and other prizes, and athletically, winning the 100 and 250 yards open races and playing for the first eleven in cricket and football. He entered the London Hospital where he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1910 and gained the FRCS in 1914. He won the Sutton Scholarship in pathology and Senior Lethday Prize in clinical medicine. He held house appointments and later became surgical registrar at the London Hospital. As a student he represented the hospital in gymnastics, fencing and boxing. Gerald Beresford served in the RAMC throughout the first world war, at first with the 31st General Hospital in Egypt, then as medical officer with the Anzac Mounted Division, later in France with the 8th Field Artillery and eventually as surgical specialist to No 6 General Hospital at Rouen. While still a Captain he was awarded the OBE and mentioned in dispatches and he retired with the rank of Major. He went to Brighton on his appointment as surgeon to the Red Cross Hospital for Officers and started his connections with other hospitals there. In 1922 he was elected assistant surgeon to the Royal Sussex County Hospital and subsequently surgeon to the Sussex Maternity and Women's Hospital and the Victoria Hospital at Lewes. He became full surgeon to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in 1936, retiring from the hospital service in 1951, but continued in private practice until 1961. His work was interrupted for almost a year in 1945 by a rheumatic illness but he made a good recovery to continue his busy surgical life. He was twice President of the Brighton and Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society, a member of the Provincial Surgical Club of Great Britain and Ireland and Chairman of the Surgical Division of the British Medical Association Annual Meeting at Brighton in 1956. Gerald Beresford had exceptional ability which was demonstrated fully throughout his long and active life. He was very popular among his colleagues and he remained at the top of his profession both locally and in wider fields. Perhaps his outstanding ability was in surgical technique, for he was a superb surgeon with a true surgeon's hands. His surgical decisions were quickly made and he operated with speed and precision. He was small, dapper and exquisitely tailored, his appearance inspired confidence in his patients, as did his surgical technique in his professional colleagues. After hospital retirement he made an extended visit to the United States of America, visiting most of the well known surgical clinics, and then returned to continue his busy private practice. He remained in good health, although with some orthopaedic problems, until the last two years, when a major abdominal operation was necessary, which he accepted stoically. Gerald Beresford was survived by his wife Katie, two sons, the elder a doctor, and two daughters, the younger trained as a state registered nurse. He died on 19 July 1979 at the age of 93 years and at the time of his death he was one of the oldest surviving Fellows of the College.