Fred Hunt was born at Ilkeston, Derbyshire, on 5 March 1899, the son of John Hunt, a schoolmaster, and his wife Clara, née Beardsley, who had seven children. He was educated at the Elementary School and the County Secondary School in Ilkeston, and entered the London Hospital Medical College in 1916, where he won several undergraduate prizes and then became demonstrator of zoology at East London College in 1918. He qualified MB BS in 1922 and after holding junior posts at the London he returned to the East Midlands, to the General and City Hospitals in Nottingham and Heanor Memorial Hospital, where he became successively casualty officer, house surgeon, surgical assistant and registrar in charge of radium. He obtained the FRCS Edinburgh in 1928 and became assistant honorary surgeon in 1933. In 1931 he married Agnes Rowland, a ward sister at the General Hospital, and they had a son who died in adolescence and three daughters, one of whom became a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, one a radiographer and the other a nurse. Hunt became full honorary surgeon in 1946 and, with the advent of the NHS in 1948, he was appointed consultant surgeon to all three hospitals. Hunt was a meticulous general surgeon, noted for his ability and common sense, who, with his experience with radium was largely responsible for the formation of the radiotherapy department. He gained the FRCS in 1949. Because of his ability his services were in high demand locally. He was secretary of the Nottingham Medico-Chirurgical Society for many years and its President between 1952 and 1953, as well as an active member of the 1921 Travelling Surgical Club of Great Britain.