Andrew Bearn was born in Wallington, Surrey, on 9 May 1929, the son of Joseph Gauld Bearn, an industrial chemist, and his wife Hilda (née Keil). Two of his uncles were in the medical profession. He was at school in Berkhamsted before entering the Middlesex Hospital where he was awarded the Lyell Medal for surgical anatomy in 1952, and the Hetley Clinical Prize a year later. His surgical training started in London at the Middlesex Hospital, Great Ormond Street and the West London. Thereafter he was a registrar in Derby and Aberdeen before spending two and a half years in Jamaica; part of that time he was a lecturer but returned as a senior registrar to Sheffield before his final consultant post to Gateshead in 1965. Andrew Bearn was an active member of BAUS and wrote a paper entitled *Hydronephrosis in infancy*. He became Vice-President of BASO in 1985 and was appointed by the College as a tutor and also to serve on the panel of assessment for advisory appointments committees. In 1956 he married Margaret Edith Morse, a nurse, and they had a daughter and three sons; of whom Michael Andrew Bearn, FRCS Glasgow, is an ophthalmic surgeon and David Russell Bearn an orthodontic surgeon. He enjoyed hiking in his youth and later took up the study of local history. He was an active church member.