William Skyrme Rees was a surgeon based in Sydney, Australia who specialised in the surgical treatment of pain. He was born on 23 October 1912 in Pembroke Dock, Pembrokeshire, Wales. His father, William George Rees, was a master baker, a founding shareholder of the Alvis Motor Company in Coventry and a director of the Pater Steam Trawling Company, Milford Haven, Wales. His mother, Sarah Anne Rees née Bone, was a housewife. He was educated at the Misses Bottomleys’ Private Academy, Coventry, and then the Pembroke Dock Coronation Council School. He then held a scholarship at the Pembroke Dock County Grammar School and gained a place at Birmingham University in 1929 at the age of just 16 as an exhibitioner to study medicine. His biochemistry tutor was the eminent researcher Stanley Peart. He qualified in 1935 with a distinction in surgery. He was a casualty house surgeon at the General Hospital, Birmingham and a senior resident anaesthetist at Queen’s Hospital, also in Birmingham. He was then a house surgeon at the General Hospital under C Percival Mills. From 1936 to 1938 he was a demonstrator in anatomy at the University of Sheffield under Francis Davies. He was then a resident surgical officer at the Mayday Hospital, Croydon. From 1939 to 1946 he was a major (surgical specialist) in the RAMC. He served in general hospitals in the Sudan, Eritrea, Egypt, Syria and Cyprus. In 1946, he gained his FRCS. In 1947, he was appointed as a consultant surgeon to Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham and as an honorary demonstrator in anatomy to the University of Birmingham Medical School. From 1952 to 1965 he was a consultant surgeon to the hospitals of Caernavonshire and Anglesey, Wales. He subsequently emigrated to Australia. From 1965 to 1972 he was a general practitioner in the Australian bush, at Tocumwal and in Yeoval, both in New South Wales. He then became a surgeon in private practice in Sydney, where he specialised in the surgical treatment of pain by rhizolysis or radiofrequency lesioning. Outside medicine he rode and trained horses. He owned race horses and was a breeder of polo ponies in Australia. He also collected vintage Alvis cars, was a beekeeper and soccer player. In 1940 he married Marjorie Mathias, a teacher and medical artist. They had three children – a daughter and two sons, and five grandchildren.