Michael Devas, a former consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Hastings, invented what he called 'geriatric orthopaedics'. He was born in Holcombe, Somerset, the son of G E Devas. He was educated at Downside and Cambridge, before going to the London Hospital in September 1940 during the Blitz, at a time when students were sent to sector hospitals, which for Michael included Chase Farm, Bethnal Green and Chelmsford. He was dresser to Alan Perry and clinical clerk to Clark-Kennedy and Sir Horace (later Lord) Evans. He qualified in 1943 and joined the Royal Air Force, serving in the Far East. After the war he returned to the London as a junior assistant on the surgical unit, and was registrar in 1951. Later he specialised in orthopaedics and was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Hastings in 1956. He pioneered geriatric orthopaedics, setting up the world's first geriatric orthopaedic unit, where orthopaedic surgeon and geriatrician made joint ward rounds. He established an orthopaedic workshop, raising funds and recruiting staff to run it. Here he developed the Hastings hip, the Devas pin and plate, the Attenborough knee, and other prostheses. He was for many years an associate editor of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery*, wrote *Stress fractures* (Churchill Livingstone, London and Edinburgh, 1975) and edited *Geriatric orthopaedics* (Academic Press, London, 1977). At the age of 61 he accepted an invitation to become the first professor of a new orthopaedic department at Sains University at Penang, where he demonstrated that the principles of geriatric orthopaedics were as relevant to young road accident victims in Malaysia as they were to old people in Hastings. He was a brilliant fund-raiser, and worked indefatigably for the British Orthopaedic Association, raising £1m for the Wishbone Appeal, of which he was the director. He was a devout Catholic. He and his wife Catharine had three daughters, Angela, Magdalen and Elizabeth, and three sons, Stephen, Francis and Phillip, two of whom predeceased him. He died from heart failure on 20 February 1999.