Leonard Charles Lancaster was born in Brockley, South-East London, on March 10, 1902. He was a scholar at Aske's School, Hatcham, obtained a scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge, and a further scholarship to St George's Hospital in London where he won the Allingham Prize. After house appointments at St George's he was casualty officer at Leicester Royal Infirmary and senior resident medical officer at Bristol Royal Infirmary. He was Travelling Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and visited centres in North America and Europe. In 1939 Lancaster took over a practice in Bangor in North Wales and was also appointed honorary assistant surgeon to Caernarfon and Anglesey Infirmary. In 1945 he became a full honorary surgeon and with the inception of the National Health Service he resigned from general practice and was appointed consultant surgeon to the Welsh Hospital Board. His name will always be associated with the practice of surgery in North Wales for he visited many peripheral hospitals throughout Caernarfonshire and Anglesey as well as operating in Bangor. He retired in 1967. Lanc, as he was known to all his friends, was an unassuming and very humane gentleman, kind, loyal and much in demand. He was a member of the Court of Governors of the University of North Wales, President of the League of Hospital Friends of Bangor and a supporter of the British Medical Association. He was a keen Rotarian and a member of the Bangor Dialectical Society. In 1974 he was made a freeman of the city of Bangor. He married Dorothy Godden in 1932 and she became a dermatologist in Bangor. In 1969 he married Ceridwen Owen, and she survived him when he died after a long illness on March 13, 1980.