Arthur Clift was born in Chelmsford on 18 December 1903, the son of Arthur and Ada, née Humphries. He received part of his education at the grammar school before the family moved to Canada. He worked on prairie farms before entering Toronto University but returned to receive his medical training at the London Hospital where he qualified in 1930. He spent six months as a ship's surgeon in the China Seas, but proceeded with his specialist training in obstetrics and gynaecology at Lambeth. His research work on the properties of cervical secretions were undertaken with Scott Blair, Glover and Hart at Reading University and they produced some classic papers on this pioneer work. Arthur Clift developed a very happy and successful team in the gynaecological department at the Mayday Hospital where it was said of him that he sang hymns while he operated and conducted ward rounds. He was much respected. He was a keen gardener especially interested in the production of fruit and vegetables. Until the death of his nine-year-old son from leukaemia in 1961 he was always seen with a rose in his buttonhole. He was a voracious reader and his tastes ranged from biography to theology and philosophy. In December 1944 he married Dorothy Newell, a dermatologist and they had three daughters, one of whom became a doctor, and one a medical sociologist and three sons, one of whom became a hospital unit works manager. After he retired in 1969 he took on much of the housework and childcare while his wife returned to work as a dermatologist at Bart's. He died on 25 April 1990 aged 86 years.