John Fitton was born in Darlington on 6 August 1915. His father, John Hall Fitton, was a bank manager in the West Riding of Yorkshire and his mother Joanna, née Fowler, was of Scottish descent. He was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and studied medicine at the University of Leeds Medical School, qualifying with first class honours in 1939. He subsequently worked at Leeds General Infirmary under Reginald Broomhead, and then as assistant orthopaedic surgeon at Pinderfields General Hospital, Wakefield, until 1946. During this time he was surgeon in charge of rehabilitation, and director of the Ministry of Health training course for instructors in this field. In 1946 on the advice of Professor Seddon he was seconded to Mauritius, where there had been a serious epidemic of poliomyelitis. He established a hospital there, treating large numbers of patients with only a few colleagues, and for this he was awarded the MBE. On his return to England he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Dewsbury and District Hospital from 1950 to 1955, and he then took a consultant post at St James's University Hospital, Leeds, where he stayed until his retirement in 1980. He worked tirelessly with colleagues to help St James's achieve teaching hospital status, and to persuade the University to establish a chair of orthopaedic surgery. He was also a founder-member of the Holdsworth Orthopaedic Club, and co-founder of the Leeds bone tumour registry, of which he was secretary. He had many outside interests, being a Yorkshire County hockey player and later president of the Leeds Corinthians hockey club. He was an expert angler and president of the Yorkshire Fly Fisher club. A keen golfer, he also won the Moynihan cup, but his greatest interest, and one which he shared with his wife Nancy, was horticulture. He was chairman of the Northern Horticultural Society from 1987 to 1991, and he helped to expand the 'open garden' scheme in Yorkshire. His last work, completed just before he died but never published, was the draft of a book explaining the Latin nomenclature of plants. He died of bronchial carcinoma on 2 December 1992 aged 76 at Pately Bridge, near Harrogate. He was survived by his wife Nancy, née Errington, and their three children Jennifer, David and Richard, a GP in Manchester.