Dudley Plunket Gurd was born in Belfast on 18 June 1910 the elder son of Frederick Gurd, a pharmaceutical chemist, and Annie Jane (née Glenn), and was educated at Belfast Royal Academy and Queen's University, Belfast, qualifying in 1932. After early house appointments in Belfast, Liverpool and London he joined the Royal Navy as Surgeon-Lieutenant in 1934. Five years later he was promoted to Lieutenant-Commander and during the war years he passed both the DOMS and the MD with high commendation. In 1943 he was awarded the Gilbert Blane Medal for services to Naval medicine. In 1945 he was posted to Hong Kong and promoted to Surgeon-Commander. During the three years' service in that station he passed the FRACS and was honorary lecturer and examiner in ophthalmology to the University of Hong Kong. In 1949 he was made Chevalier de l'Ordre Nationale de Vietnam. From 1952 to 1966 he was senior consultant and adviser in ophthalmology to the Royal Navy and was promoted to Captain in 1958. He served as warden to the Ophthalmic Hospital of St John Jerusalem from 1952 to 1955, was awarded the Gold Cross of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre in 1955, and passed the MCh in 1959 and the FRCS in 1964 when he was also appointed honorary surgeon to Her Majesty the Queen. He served at the Royal Naval Hospital at Bighi, Malta with the rank of Rear-Admiral. He was awarded the CB in 1968 and retired from the Royal Navy the following year having received an honorary DSc from Queen's University, Belfast. Throughout his professional life his main interests were trachoma and lime burns of the eye. His outside interests were all kinds of sport and athletics as well as the study of languages. He married Therese Delenda of Salonika in 1939 and they had one son and one daughter. He died in Italy on 9 August 1987 after a motor accident.