Born on 24 December 1906 in Tyrwaun, Ystalyfera, Swansea, David Lincoln Lewis was the son of William James Lewis, a medical practitioner, and Constance Mary Adeney, whose father owned Swaine and Adeney, the shop in Piccadilly. His younger brother, Ronald Swaine Lewis (qv this vol) was also FRCS. He was educated at Epsom and St John's College, Cambridge, before going to St George's Hospital for his clinical studies. There he won the Brackenbury prizes in medicine and surgery for 1931. He did junior jobs at St George's and was Grey Turner's first assistant at the Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith. During the war he was in command of the 29 Field Surgical Unit, and was surgical specialist to the 98th General Hospital in Italy, where he won the MC. After the war he was appointed consultant surgeon to the Royal Salop Infirmary. He published on vagotomy and pyloroplasty and the treatment of pyloric stenosis in the elderly. He married Cecily Patricia Harte-Barry (Pat) in 1936. They had one son, Jeremy, a solicitor. There are three grandchildren - David, Lionel and Lucinda. He died after a short illness, aged 91, on 23 February 1998. Pat died on 7 October the following year.