John Fulford Jarvis was born at Carshalton, Surrey, in 1910 and educated at Whitgift School, winning an open scholarship at King's College and King's College Hospital. He graduated in 1933 and then took the MRCP and the FRCS. He joined the Colonial Medical Service to work in Tanganyika in 1936. He was always keenly interested in missionary work and went with that in mind. He took the Diploma in Laryngology and Otology in 1947 and was transferred to Kenya, where he became ear, nose, and throat specialist to the Kenyan Government. For the further education of his family he moved to Cape Town in 1959 and later became head of the department of otorhinolaryngology at Groote Schuur Hospital. He remained in this post until 1975, when he retired from full-time work but continued to teach anatomy at the University. Jarvis was an elder at the local chapel of Christian Brethren for many years. Student Christian work took up much of his leisure time. He was especially interested in the Student Christian Association of South Africa and was its President in later years. He married Betty Wintler in 1936 and they had a son and three daughters, one of whom is a doctor at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His wife died in 1971 and he died on 1 June 1978, aged 68 years.