Kenneth Lennox Wilson, the son of the Rt Rev Cecil Wilford Wilson, Anglican Bishop of Middleton, and of Winifred Marion Wilson (née McCall), was born at Bath, Somerset, on 11 October 1918. He was educated at Sedbergh Preparatory School, Marlborough College and Christ's College, Cambridge, before entering Guy's Hospital where he qualified in 1943. After appointments as house physician and house surgeon at Guy's he enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was on active service in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. He was formally commended for gallantry off the coast of West Africa and spent his last few months as principal medical officer on a fleet aircraft carrier, being demobilised with the rank of Surgeon-Lieutenant. He was chief clinical assistant and registrar to the ENT department at Guy's from 1946 to 1950, and then senior registrar and tutor in the otolaryngology department at Bristol University. He recorded his indebtedness to Philip Reading, RJ Cann and to J Angell James. In 1952 he was appointed consultant otorhinolaryngologist to Lewisham and to Greenwich General Hospitals, and to Hither Green and St John's Hospitals. Kenneth Wilson not only had a capacity for hard work in his chosen specialty but was an able committee man. In 1965 he was appointed to the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board and to its finance committee, subsequently becoming a member, and later vice-chairman, of the legal action committee of what was then the South East Thames Regional Health Authority until 1976. He had been appointed a governor of Guy's Hospital in 1971. He was a keen member of the Sections of Laryngology and Otology of the Royal Society of Medicine, being elected to the Council of the Laryngology Section in 1965, and a Vice-President from 1968 to 1970. He was treasurer of the British Academic Conference of Otolaryngology, both for the Edinburgh Conference in 1971 and the London one in 1975, serving on its Council from 1975 to 1983. His leisure pursuits included music, especially opera, upon which he was something of an expert, fishing, gardening and squash rackets. An excellent host, he and his wife entertained a good deal and he was often the cook on these occasions. He was always a convivial and entertaining companion who retired early owing to problems with his knees which increasingly limited his activities. He married Christiane Doris Price on 21 November 1944 and they had a daughter, Alison, and a son, Michael. When he died suddenly on 19 November 1987 he was survived by his wife, children and grandchildren, Edward, Giles and Michèle.