Terence John Hall was born in Stourbridge on 13 January 1948, the son of John Thomas Hall, a company director, and after attending King Edward's Grammar School in Stourbridge, entered Leeds University Medical School at the age of 17, qualifying in 1970. His first house surgeon appointment was at Airedale General Hospital, Keighley, the hospital where he eventually became consultant surgeon and it was at this stage of his life that he developed an interest in surgery and decided to embark on surgical training. After further junior surgical appointments he passed the FRCS five years after qualification. He was strongly motivated towards surgical research and in 1976 went to Chicago as a research fellow. During his year in the United States he studied the production and flow of bile and was awarded the Chicago Society of Gastroenterology Prize. Many clinical publications ensued and in 1981 he gained the MD by thesis. He was then senior surgical registrar at Leeds General Infirmary and having been a founder member of the Association of Surgeons in Training in Leeds was made President of the Association. He was appointed consultant surgeon at Keighley at the age of 33 and embarked on a heavy surgical workload with vigour and enthusiasm. His particular interests were microvascular surgery and the use of the stapling gun for intestinal anastomoses, especially in the treatment of tumours situated in the lower rectum. He continued to attend surgical conferences and shortly after returning from a meeting overseas he developed cardiomyopathy, from which he died on 21 April 1985 at the age of 37. The high esteem in which he was held by his hospital colleagues and patients is testified by the establishment of a garden in his memory adjacent to the postgraduate medical centre in Keighley. He married Margaret while still a medical student in 1969 and was survived by her and their two sons, James and Christopher.