William Plunkett Crone was born on 23 March 1919, in London, the second child and first son of William Crone, a civil servant and secretary to the Northern Ireland Government Board of Trade. His mother was Mary Jane, née Plunkett. His early education was at the Methodist College, Belfast. He entered Queen's University, Belfast, where he qualified as a doctor in 1942. He then joined the RAF reaching the rank of Acting Squadron-Leader. After the war he became an ex-service registrar in Leeds, the resident surgical officer at Leeds General Infirmary and finally senior surgical registrar, where he worked for the late George Armitage. He took his FRCS in 1953. He published papers on retro-peritoneal rupture of the duodenum and intestinal polyposis associated with pigmentation and intussusception in triplets, in the *British medical journal*, 1954. He was appointed consultant surgeon in Goole and Pontefract, but gave up surgical practice in the early 1960s. He then became consultant venereologist to the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and the Royal Halifax Infirmary after working as medical assistant in venereology to the Leeds Regional Hospital Board. He was a member of Leeds and West Riding Medico-Chirurgical Society and Leeds Regional Surgical Club. His pastime was golf. In 1947 he married Dr Agnes A Jervis, daughter of Dr J Johnstone Jervis, Medical Officer of Health for the city of Leeds. He died on 4 May, 1980, leaving his wife, one daughter who is a dermatologist, and two sons.