Gerald Courtenay Davies was born on 10 June 1947 in Newport, Monmouthshire. His father was Gordon Davies, a senior officer in the Wales Gas Board. His mother was Edna Maud née Hunter. He was educated at the High School for Boys in Cardiff and studied medicine at the Westminster Hospital. There he won the John Pickering prize in biochemistry, the Arthur Lewis memorial prize in surgery and the Begley prize of the Royal College of Surgeons. He did junior jobs on the professorial unit at the Westminster and Southampton, and returned as registrar at the Westminster Hospital. In 1970, he married Sandra Ruth Garai, herself a doctor. They had no children. He wrote much on medical history and was a council member of the Osler Society of the History of Medicine. He died on 24 December 2002.