Gordon Rose was an orthopaedic surgeon who pioneered the development of walking orthoses (surgical appliances). He was born in Coventry on 28 April 1916, and qualified in medicine at Birmingham in 1940 with the gold medal in surgery. He then joined the RAMC, serving throughout the war in the Middle East, where he came into contact with John Charnley, the pioneer of hip replacement surgery. After the war he did junior surgical jobs in Birmingham, before being appointed as the sole orthopaedic surgeon to Shrewsbury Hospital and to the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry in 1950. He spent a year at Rancho Los Amigos in California, studying the biomechanics of gait, which became his life-work. He applied gait recording to the treatment of club foot, and later developed an orthosis, the 'swivel walker', which enabled children with spina bifida to stand and walk. He pioneered and presided over the Orthotic Training Council. He was appointed OBE in 1981. He was much sought-after as a speaker, and was noted for his prodigious memory for jokes and anecdotes. He was deeply involved in the planning of the new Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, which was opened in 1977. In 1940, he married Molly Lavender, who was a general practitioner. She was tiny and frail, but vivacious and deeply religious; a contrast with Gordon in every way. When she died suddenly in 1987 he gradually took on her pastoral role in the community. He died on 13 November 1999, survived by his two sons.