George Spencer Ferraby, the son of Dr George Arthur Ferraby, a general practitioner, and of Gertrude Sommers (née Ansell) was born in Nottingham on 29 June 1904. Both his grandfathers were doctors as was his sister and a number of other individuals on each side of the family. After education at Nottingham High School and King's College, London, he entered King's College Hospital and qualified in 1927. Following resident and registrar appointments at King's and various London County Council hospitals he completed the Fellowship and mastership examinations and became a surgeon in the LCC service. On the outbreak of war he first served in the Emergency Medical Service before joining the RAMC in 1943, retiring with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1946. He returned to the surgical staff of St Charles' Hospital, Ladbroke Grove, and remained there for the rest of his working life, becoming consultant surgeon at the inception of the NHS. A lifelong bachelor, he lived in one of the apartments attached to his hospital and devoted himself solely to that institution. He was never heard to speak an unkind word and was always most friendly and helpful to anyone with a problem; indeed, something of a father confessor to doctors and nurses alike. He had an upright, athletic figure, and continued skiing every year until long after his retirement from surgery. He was also keen on fly-fishing and metal work. He recorded in his College cv his professional indebtedness to T P Legg, Sir Thomas Fairbank and Harold Edwards at King's; to George Grey Turner at Hammersmith and to P Winsbury White at St Charles' Hospital, with all of whom he had worked. He died on 25 November 1988 aged 84.