Ronald Canney was a consultant surgeon to the Kent and Canterbury, and Thanet Hospitals in Kent. His father was James Robertson Campbell, consultant gynaecologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and his mother was Violet, née Newton. He was on born 17 January 1916. After Oundle, he spent a year at the University of Würzburg in Germany, where he was reprimanded for his anti-Nazi opinions. He then read medicine at Clare College, Cambridge, and went on to do his clinical studies at University College Hospital. After serving as house surgeon he joined the RNVR as surgeon lieutenant and was on HMS *Malpin* on convoy duty in the North Atlantic. *Malpin* was a converted merchant ship that catapulted hurricane aircraft into combat. Later he was a medical officer at the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth when it was bombed, and he helped out during the blitz on Plymouth. He continued studying for the FRCS, which he passed in 1944, and after the war became surgical registrar at the Royal Victoria Hospital Newcastle, senior registrar at Guy's, and later the Royal Cancer Hospital and Great Ormond Street, a period of his life when he was very much influenced by Julian Taylor, Sir Heneage Ogilvie, Lord Brock and Sir Cecil Wakeley. He was appointed as a consultant surgeon to Kent and Canterbury, and Thanet Hospitals in 1947, where he helped set up the postgraduate centre and the private Chaucer Hospital in Canterbury. He always took pride in his neat scars. He once spent many hours repairing the neck of a stabbing victim; some months later he received a letter from the doctor at Maidstone prison informing him that this patient had been hanged - the last at Maidstone - and that the stitches had held. A keen shot in his youth he had a deep love of the countryside and was an enthusiastic fly-fisherman. In 1943 he married Kathleen Joan (Judy) Cotter. They had a son, Peter, and daughter, Elizabeth. He died at home on 5 November 2000, aged 84, survived by his wife, children and grandchildren, Lucy, Edward, Toby and Andrew.