Denis Lister Chadwick was born at Manchester on 30 March 1924, the son of a doctor. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Manchester University, where he graduated in 1947. After house appointments at Manchester Royal Infirmary and elsewhere he served in the medical branch of the Royal Air Force for two years. He obtained his MD with commendation in 1950 and the FRCS in 1952. His postgraduate training in otolaryngology was at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and Manchester Royal Infirmary. Later, he was a research fellow of the Lempert Institute of Otology, New York. It was during this period that he worked under the personal direction of Dr Julius Lempert and learnt to perform modern temporal bone surgery, particularly in relation to surgical treatment of deafness. This type of work was always one of his greatest interests. While in the Royal Air Force he developed an interest in the hazards of noise in relation to the ear, and this he continued throughout his professional life. He published many articles related to noise and hearing. His chapter in the third edition of Scott-Brown's *Diseases of the ear, nose and throat* on noise and the ear was an outstanding contribution and accepted universally as an authoritative reference. He was very knowledgeable on occupational hearing loss and represented the British Association of Otolaryngology and the British Society of Audiology as a member of the Occupational Deafness Subcommittee of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. He was a keen member of the Sections of Otology and Laryngology of the Royal Society of Medicine and the British Society, and on each of these bodies he was a member of Council. From 1972 to 1974 he was secretary of the Section of Otology of the Royal Society of Medicine. Of his relaxations, in his younger days caving was a keen pastime and he accumulated an outstanding collection of fossils. He was an avid reader and keenly interested in the history of medicine. In later years Denis was a very sick man, but he bravely returned to his hospital work. Shy and modest, he showed great kindness to his many patients. He died on 3 January 1976, aged 51, and was survived by his wife Audrey, a doctor, and by his two children.