Edward Drake's life spanned a period of great change. He was born on 30 April 1910 in South Shields into a very different world from that which he left in 1992. He was educated at the Leys School and Jesus College, Cambridge, before entering St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, where he passed the conjoint examination in 1935, completed his Cambridge degree in 1937 and became a Fellow of the College in 1938. With such a start to his career, it is not surprising that serving in the RAMC from 1939 to 1945 in Burma and Germany he had a distinguished record and gained the rank of lieutenant colonel. Like many others, he must have felt the irony of returning to civilian life in a training post, even such an elevated one as senior registrar in Sheffield. In 1950 he was appointed consultant surgeon in Lancaster, where formerly the surgical services had been provided by general practitioner surgeons on a part-time basis. Here his military experience and his own natural gifts as a surgeon were put to excellent use in building up a department of the highest standard of surgical care, both during his tenure and subsequently. He was himself held in the highest regard as a clinician and as an operating surgeon, and he was able to pass on these qualities to his trainees, in whom he took a great interest. Hall's main interests lay in gardening, philately and golf. He died on 4 September 1992, survived by his wife Agnes, two sons and four grandchildren.