Born on October 9 1900 at Leicester, the second daughter of William Frederick Linford, a marine engineer, and Sarah Elizabeth Basford, Hilda Linford was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School, Leicester and Manchester University, obtaining the University Prize in medicine in 1921. From 1924 to 1926 she was an assistant lecturer in physiology in the University and in 1928 was appointed Dickinson Research Scholar in Medicine of the University which enabled her to spend a year working in neurophysiology at the College de France, Paris. She then set out on a career in anaesthesia and was resident anaesthetist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary at Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 1929 to 1930 and joined the LCC anaesthetic service until 1934. Having achieved her ambition of gaining the Fellowship of the College, she studied maternity at Sheffield for 16 months and in 1936 became the first woman to be appointed to the Isle of Wight Public Health Department with special charge of maternity and child welfare. Hilda Linford never married; she was an inveterate traveller visiting most corners of the globe especially in connection with her interest in the archaeological remains of pre-history. She died on 27 March 1980.