Philip Geoffrey Doyne was born in 1886 of a distinguished southern Irish family. He was the elder son of Robert Doyne FRCS, a prominent ophthalmic surgeon who founded the Oxford Eye Hospital and played a leading part in the establishment of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, and a first cousin of P E H Adam FRCS, whose mother was a Miss Doyne and who succeeded Robert Doyne as reader in ophthalmology at Oxford. Doyne was educated at Winchester, Trinity College, Oxford and St Thomas's Hospital where he graduated in 1913. After holding house appointments at St Thomas's he joined the RAMC during the first world war and served in Mesopotamia, becoming the Army Eye Specialist in Baghdad. After the war Doyne returned to St Thomas's in 1919 as ophthalmic registrar, and in 1920 was appointed ophthalmic surgeon to the East London Hospital for Children. He always retained his interest in children's eyes and in 1922 was made ophthalmic surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, and in 1932 became consultant surgeon there. In 1921 he held the Lang Research Scholarship at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital (Moorfields). The following year he became assistant surgeon there and surgeon in 1928. In 1924 he was appointed ophthalmic surgeon with charge of out-patients at St Thomas's Hospital. Doyne served for a time as sub-dean of the St Thomas's medical school, and from 1935 to 1946 was head of the ophthalmic department there. During the second world war Doyne moved into simple rooms near the hospital to enable him to carry out his work for the EMS with maximum efficiency. He served on the Ophthalmic Group Committee of the BMA from 1938 to 1945, and at the 1933 meeting in Dublin was a vice-president of his Section. The peak of his career was in 1943 when he was elected Master of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, of which his father had been founder and first Master. On retirement Doyne went to live at the family home at Bix Hill, Assendon, Henley-on-Thames. Doyne was of a retiring nature, and made few contributions to the literature of his specialty. At Oxford Doyne rowed for his college, and at his home at Henley was able to keep up this sport, but was better known as a fencer. Twice amateur foils champion of Great Britain (1912 and 1920) he was one of the British Olympic team before the war. To the age of 60 he fenced regularly at the London Fencing Club. He married Ida, daughter of Harcourt Griffin of Bude, in 1915 and their only child married John Emrys Lloyd, a successor of Doyne's as a British amateur champion and Olympic fencer, and a partner in Farrers, solicitors, of Lincoln's Inn Fields. Doyne's health deteriorated shortly after his retirement, and after a long illness he died at his home on 22 January 1959 aged 72. Mrs Doyne presented the College with his copy of Richard Wiseman's *Several chirurgical treatises* 1676, a valuable first edition, in his memory.