Trevor Meyrick Thomas was born at Bangor, Caernarvonshire, on 7 July 1898, the son of John Edward Thomas MD, a general practitioner surgeon. His mother, Mary, née Rowlands, was the daughter of a farmer, and his maternal great-uncle was John Rowlands who qualified MRCS in 1832. He was educated at Charterhouse School where he obtained a leaving exhibition and during the final two years of the first world war served as a subaltern in the Royal Artillery. After demobilisation he went to Caius College, Cambridge, and in 1920 passed the Natural Science Tripos with first class honours. His clinical studies were at St Bartholomew's Hospital where he was awarded the senior entrance science scholarship as well as the Matthew Duncan gold medal and exhibition. He qualified in 1922, subsequently serving as house surgeon in general surgery, orthopaedics and ENT at St Bartholomew's and working under Sir Holburt Waring, Sir Geoffrey Keynes and Twistington Higgins. Later he was demonstrator of pathology at the hospital and passed the FRCS three years after qualifying and the Master of Surgery degree by examination in the following year. He was chief assistant to a surgical unit at St Bartholomew's and later was appointed to the Miller General Hospital at Greenwich, St Mary's Hospital, Plaistow, and the Dartford Hospitals undertaking a prodigious work load and performing a wide range of operations. After the onset of the second world war he again volunteered for military service and was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1942 to 1943. After the introduction of the National Health Service he served as consultant surgeon to both the South-East and North-East Regional Hospital Boards. He was President of the West Kent Medico Chirurgical Society. He retired in 1963 and was able to pursue his hobbies of ornithology and gardening. In 1948 he married Judith Margaret Kemp and there were two sons of the marriage, John and Richard, both of whom have qualified in medicine. He died on 7 April 1988 aged 89, survived by his wife and sons.