Robert Paul was born in Northern Ireland on 7 June 1904. From school he started to study dentistry at Edinburgh University but changed to medicine a year later and qualified from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1927. He held resident appointments in Bristol before election to the staff of the Bristol Royal Infirmary. During the second world war he served in the RAMC and spent some time in South East Asia where he became consultant surgeon to the Southern Command with the rank of Brigadier. On demobilisation he returned as consultant surgeon to the United Bristol Hospitals, to Cossham Memorial Hospital and the Devizes and District Hospital. He was lecturer in operative surgery and examiner in surgery for the University of Bristol. He was a member and past President of the Moynihan Chirurgical Society, and a Fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland on whose council he served. He was also a regular attender at meetings of the Surgical Club of South West England until his retirement. Essentially a practical man, Paul was one of the busiest and most popular surgeons in the Bristol area and established warm and easy rapport with his patients. He much enjoyed student teaching which he undertook with good humour, but the depth of his knowledge and experience were more evident in his postgraduate lectures and teaching rounds which were always well attended. He was a conscientious advisor to his surgical trainees and maintained kind and exemplary relationships with his nursing staff. An expert fisherman and keen sportsman, Robert Paul was widely read and enjoyed the monthly meetings of the Bristol Medical Reading Society up to the time of his death. His wife suffered much ill health and he devoted himself unsparingly to her care so that he was a lonely and rather unhappy person after her death in 1977. He died suddenly on 20 September 1981 whilst on holiday in North Devon.