Born 16 October 1865, eldest son of G A Berkeley of Belgrave Road, London, SW, a wine importer, and his wife Sarah Louisa, second daughter of Thomas Moore of The Wergs, Wolverhampton. His father was related to the family of Berkeley, Earls of Berkeley. Comyns Berkeley was educated at Marlborough and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took third-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos Part I, 1887, and entered the Middlesex Hospital 1888. He served as house physician, house surgeon to (Sir) Henry Morris, and obstetric house surgeon to William A Duncan. In 1901 the post of obstetric registrar was created and Berkeley was elected by one vote against a strong candidate from another place; he also served as obstetric tutor. Berkeley had been house physician at the Brompton Hospital and the Great Ormond Street Hospital, and was appointed in 1897 assistant surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, where he had been registrar since 1895. He was elected assistant obstetric and gynaecological surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital in 1905, attaining to the full staff in 1908, and became consulting gynaecological surgeon in 1930. On the reconstitution of the City of London Maternity Hospital in 1907 he was appointed senior surgeon there. He was also consulting obstetric and gynaecological surgeon to the Hornsey Central, Eltham, and Clacton Hospitals. During the war of 1914-18 he served at the Middlesex Military Hospital at Clacton. After retiring from active practice in 1930, Berkeley's services were retained on the administrative boards of his hospitals. Berkeley also took a very large share in public administration. He was appointed to the Central Midwives Board as representative of the Royal College of Physicians in 1930, and became its chairman in 1936. He actively promoted the Midwives Act 1936, which established a national service of salaried midwives. Berkeley was prominent in founding the British, now Royal, College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, became a charter fellow 1929 and first honorary treasurer; he helped to found the Royal College of Nursing, and acted as honorary treasurer to it and its affiliated Cowdray club. His part in the formation of the Royal College of Nursing led to some controversy with other nursing bodies. Gynaecological surgery had been given a great impetus at the Middlesex Hospital by Sir John Bland-Sutton. Berkeley improved the tradition that he inherited from Bland-Sutton, and with his junior colleague Victor Bonney, FRCS did pioneer work in the surgery of carcinoma of the uterus, and he was early interested in the radium treatment of that disease. He established a radium clinic for this purpose at the Lambeth Hospital and was its director from 1928 to 1939, at first under the MAB and later the LCC, who subsumed the Board's duties. He was appointed to the first National Radium Commission in 1929 and became vice-chairman. He was British representative to the League of Nations Commission on radium and promoted its publication of Annual reports on radium treatment of cancer of the uterus. He was closely connected with the work of the Ministry of Health, and helped in that department's investigation of maternal mortality in childbirth, which resulted in the valuable Reports of 1930 and 1932. Through all this activity and with a large private practice, Berkeley's chief interest lay in teaching. He was prominent in all social and athletic activities at the Middlesex Hospital, and took much care for the welfare of his students and nurses. He was the moving spirit of the Middlesex Hospital club and its masonic lodge, and with Herbert Charles, MRCS was prominent at the annual concert and dance. He was keenly interested in the rebuilding .of the hospital. He examined for the Conjoint Board (1909-13), the Society of Apothecaries, and most of the English, Welsh and Scotch medical schools. His assistant and collaborator of many years, Victor Bonney, has described how he made time to write the long series of his very successful text-books and to edit the *Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire* by sitting up into the small hours of the night; at the end of these arduous vigils Berkeley would refresh them with fine Stilton and audit ale. For he was a delightful host, urbane and witty, whose knowledge of wine and food was notable and his dinner parties famous. In early life Berkeley suffered from infantile paralysis of one leg. But this did not deter him from the assiduous and strenuous work which led to such great success. Although determined and outspoken, he was a most popular man, both in and outside the profession, and especially at the Garrick Club. Berkeley was elected FRCP 1909 and served on the council 1931-33; he was elected FRCS 1929 as a Member of 20 years' standing; and in the same year he became a foundation FRCOG. He was created a KB in 1934. Berkeley's recreations were golf and travel. He had visited North and South America, Egypt, and South Africa. He married in April 1894 Ethel Rose, younger daughter of Edward King Fordham, DL, JP of Ashwell Bury, Herts. Lady Berkeley died in September 1945; they had no children. Berkeley's last years were troubled by his being bombed out of his home of fifty years, 53 Wimpole Street, during the German raids on London, and again out of the house to which he removed, 73 Great Peter Street, SW 1. Berkeley died in the Middlesex Hospital on Sunday, 27 January 1946, aged 80, and was buried at St Marylebone Crematorium, East Finchley. A memorial service was held at Middlesex Hospital chapel on 30 January, at which his cousin the Very Rev Thomas Crick, CB, CBE, MVO, Dean of Rochester, officiated. He left the residue of his fortune for medical fellowships at Caius College, Cambridge. Berkeley was born the same day, 16 October 1865, took the Conjoint qualification the same day, 30 July 1891, and died the same day, 27 January 1946, as Sir John Broadbent, Bt, FRCP, physician to St Mary's, whose obituary memoir appeared beside Berkeley's in *The Times*. Publications:- *A handbook for midwives and obstetric dressers*. London, 1906; 12th ed. 1943. *Gynaecology for nurses and gynaecological nursing*. London, 1910; 9th ed 1943. *A textbook of gynaecological surgery*, with V Bonney. London, 1911; 4th ed 1941 *The difficulties and emergencies of obstetric practice*, with V Bonney. London, 1913; 3rd ed 1921. *A guide to gynaecology in general practice*, with V Bonney. London, 1915; 2nd ed 1919. *The annals of the Middlesex Hospital at Clacton-on-Sea, 1914-1919*, with V Bonney. London, 1921. *An atlas of midwifery*, with G M Dupuy. London, 1926; 2nd ed 1932. *A guide to the profession of nursing*. London, 1931. *The abnormal in obstetrics*, with V Bonney and Douglas Macleod. London, 1938. *Pictorial midwifery*. London. 4th ed. 1941. Contributor to Churchill's *System of treatment*; Eden and Lockyer's *System of Gynaecology*. London, 1917; and the *Encyclopaedia of medicine*. Editor of *Midwifery by ten teachers*. London, 1917, and *Diseases of women by ten teachers*. London, 1922. Editor 1923-46 of the *Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire*, to which he contributed a special memorial supplement: The seven stages of John Bland-Sutton and an epilogue, April 1937.