Rupert Corbett was born on 11 February 1893 in Rondebosch, South Africa, and he received his early education at the Diocesan College in Cape Town before entering Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge. He completed his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital and qualified with the Conjoint Examination in 1917, but almost immediately he was sent abroad to Mesopotamia in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After the war he continued his surgical training and on passing the FRCS he went to Ann Arbor to continue his training with Dr Frederick Coller. He was appointed to the staff of King George V Hospital at Ilford and as assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital under J E H Roberts, the thoracic surgeon. He actively supported and helped in the development of Chalfonts and Gerrard's Cross Cottage Hospital and St Andrew's at Dollis Hill; but in 1946 he was appointed as full surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital where he further developed his pioneer work in ulcerative colitis, tumours of the pancreas and cancer surgery. He appeared to have boundless energy for his surgical work and teaching which was conducted with courtesy, kindness and enthusiasm. He was elected to the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons, and also examined at Cambridge and London. He was also President of the Proctological Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1932 he married Mary Olive Gordon Robinson, a widow, whose son, James Robinson, continued the work of his stepfather in cancer surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital and retired to head a department in the history of medicine in Dallas, Texas. In retirement in Jersey his wife sadly died in 1964 but he then became very active in the St John Ambulance, the District Nursing Association, a home for infirm and aged women and the local Royal Commonwealth Society, of which he became President. He died on 28 January 1985 aged 91 years.