Geoffrey Burwell was professor of experimental orthopaedics at the University of Nottingham. He was born on 1 July 1928 in Leeds, the third son of Arthur Reginald Burwell and Mabel Walker Burwell née Robinson. He attended Leeds Grammar School from 1936 to 1939 and then Harrogate Grammar School from 1940 to 1945, where he excelled not only academically, but also in cricket, running, swimming and rugby, becoming *victor ludorum* for his year in 1945. He went on to study medicine at Leeds University, where his academic career can only be described as glittering: he achieved a BSc with first class honours in anatomy in 1949, his MB ChB in 1952 and an MD with a distinction, based on renal circulation, in 1955. While at Leeds, he won the Wellington and Littlewood prizes in anatomy, the Hardwick prize in medicine and the Edward Wood prize in surgical anatomy. At Leeds General Infirmary, he was a house surgeon, a demonstrator in anatomy and then a casualty officer in orthopaedics. From 1954 to 1955, he was a house surgeon at Hammersmith Hospital, London. He then carried out his National Service (from 1955 to 1957) as a junior surgical specialist at Catterick and in Gibraltar, leaving the Army with the rank of captain. From 1957 to 1958, he was an orthopaedic registrar and then switched to spend five years in academic anatomy in Leeds as an honorary clinical research fellow attached to the department of orthopaedics. From 1963 to 1965 he reverted back to surgery, as a lecturer and a senior registrar in general surgery at Leeds General Infirmary. In 1965, he was appointed as a registrar and then as a senior registrar and resident surgical officer at Oswestry, where he stayed until 1968. I first met Geoffrey when he was appointed as a registrar in Oswestry. He subsequently became a close friend and adviser, and took a very active interest in my personal research. He always had time to talk about research and gave me invaluable advice. I was only one of many pupils who were supported by Geoffrey: he had unlimited capacity for advising and supporting people who were doing research and rejoicing in their achievements. He was without doubt the most stimulating and generous academic I have ever met: his contribution as an individual ‘research stimulator’ was absolutely immense. At Oswestry, he was extremely popular, a very good administrator and surgeon, and extremely capable at managing the prima donnas who visited from outside hospitals, including Sir Reginald Watson-Jones, Sir Henry Osmond-Clarke, Rowland Hughes and Gordon Rose. He was appointed to the chair at the institute of orthopaedics at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) in 1967. It is fair to say that at that time the hospital was somewhat in disarray and this meant that Geoff had to take on a lot of unnecessary administrative work, together with clinical work and he found that his research suffered. After four years of this situation, he decided to move back into research. I was sorry to see him give up the clinical professorship at the RNOH because I think the hospital and the institute would have benefited greatly had he continued. He moved to the University of Nottingham, where he made a distinguished contribution, particularly in the area of scoliosis research. He was first employed as a senior medical research fellow in the department of human morphology, and was then promoted to professor of human morphology and experimental orthopaedics through an endowment by action research and the Nottingham Health Authority. He held this post until 1993 and then continued as emeritus professor in the faculty of medicine and health sciences school of biomedical sciences, University of Nottingham until 1999. From 1985 to July 2003, he was a member of the Medical Appeals Tribunal in the Nottingham region. His publications were always of excellent quality; he published 115 articles personally and many as a joint author based especially on bone grafts, derivatives and substitutes, and latterly the early detection of adult scoliosis and the causes of scoliosis. He continued working on scoliosis research until just before his death and had many novel ideas. His work on bone transplantation and scoliosis will stand. He was president of the British Orthopaedic Research Society (from 1983 to 1984) and of the British Scoliosis Society (from 1988 to 1989). He was awarded the Harding prize of action research in 1991. He was one of the most generous people I have ever met, but it was ideas that drove him and not particularly surgery, the stimulus of a surgical career nor self-aggrandisement. He had a manner of complete self-assurance and confidence which I envied greatly. One of Geoff’s interesting characteristics from my point of view was that, having been an accomplished sportsman, he gave up sport when he took up medicine. He was also a very private person. He married Helen Mary Petty in January 1963 and they had two children, Matthew, who became a well-established and distinguished orthopaedic surgeon, and Jane. Predeceased by his wife in December 2015, Geoff died on 7 January 2018 at the age of 89. He will be greatly missed.