Oswald Vaughan Lloyd-Davies was born at Chariton, Kent on 13 January 1905, the son of Rev Samuel Lloyd-Davies BA, a congregational minister, and Anna Marguerita, née Evans. He was educated at Caterham School where he secured the Honoratus Prize before entering the Middlesex Hospital Medical School from which he graduated in 1929. While still a student he obtained the Lyle Surgical Scholarship and was later anatomy tutor and prosector. Within three years of qualifying he had passed the FRCS and MS and three years later was appointed to the surgical staff of St Mark's Hospital at the age of 30. He also served on the staff of the Connaught Hospital and Hampstead General Hospital until 1950, when he was appointed surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital. After his appointment to St Mark's he worked in conjunction with Sir Clifford Naunton Morgan to perfect the technique of synchronous combined excision of the rectum. The lithotomy-Trendelenburg position that he adopted is generally known as the Lloyd-Davies position and he designed special leg supports for this purpose. The synchronous approach increased the operability rate as well as reducing the mortality in patients with rectal cancer. During the war years he was surgeon to the Emergency Medical Service Northwestern Hospital and after the war directed his attention to the sphincter- preserving operation of anterior resection. His detailed anatomical knowledge and meticulous technique enabled him to achieve wide clearance of a rectal tumour and create low anastomoses with virtually no leakage. He had an inventive, original mind and in addition to perfecting the technique of these operations he designed special artery forceps for use low in the pelvis and a narrow sigmoidoscope with proximal lighting which could be passed with minimal discomfort to the patient. He was one of the first surgeons to carry out liver resection for large bowel metastases and published a detailed account of this technique in the *British journal of surgery*. He served as President of the Proctology Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and was a member of the council of the section of surgery. He also examined for the University of London. He will be remembered by many young surgeons for his painstaking operative technique and for his constant emphasis on the importance of not hurting patients. Although his manner was shy and reserved he was a generous host at his home in Ashwell, Hertfordshire. His outside interests were salmon fishing, pig breeding and gardening. In 1939 he married Menna Morgan who died in 1968 and by whom he had a daughter and a son who is a surgeon. In 1970 he married Rosamund Bond who survived him when he died on 15 July 1987.