Born on 7 June 1908, the second son of John Gay French, FRCS and his wife, Elinor May, younger daughter of Francis Stafford Pipe-Wolferstan, of Statfold. His grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel John Gay French, IMS, was also a Fellow of the College (see *Plarr's Lives* 1930, 1, 422). Stanley Gay French was educated at Rugby School, at King's College, London, and at King's College Hospital, where he served as house surgeon to out-patients in the ear, nose, and throat department and then as senior house surgeon in the same department. He was commissioned a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Navy and subsequently promoted surgeon-lieutenant-commander. On the outbreak of war in 1939 he was serving at the Naval Hospital, Chatham; after a period at a naval hospital near Harwich he was posted to Ismailia, Egypt. He took the Fellowship in 1942. During the invasion of Normandy in June 1944 he served in a hospital ship carrying wounded troops from France to England. His next post was at a naval hospital at Newton Abbott, Devon, and he was then sent to Trincomalee, Ceylon. On release from the Navy in January 1947 he emigrated to Kenya, where he was appointed surgeon to the Nairobi Hospital. He died suddenly in Nairobi on 29 August 1948, aged 40. He was survived by his parents, but his brothers had died before him.