Richard Hugh Carruthers was born on 6 September 1926 in Rotherham, Yorkshire, the first son of Hugh Boyton Carruthers, BA Cantab, a draper, and Constance Mary, a physiotherapist, daughter of Richard Reece Hardwicke, MRCS, LRCP, a surgeon born in 1859. He was educated at Chantry Mount Preparatory School, Bishop's Stortford, Bishop's Stortford College and the London Hospital Medical School. After qualification he served in the RAMC for two years during which time he was posted to Asmara in Ethopia. This was a formative period in his life resulting in his interest in third world affairs. Carruthers was orthopaedic house surgeon at the London Hospital, a registrar at Bath United Hospital and medical officer to the Mackenzie Hospital, British Guiana, from 1954 to 1959. He then held various posts in the London Hospital group. He was eventually appointed surgeon at Chingolo, Zambia in 1965 and in 1966 he moved from the copper belt to Lusaka as consultant surgeon to the Lusaka Central Hospital which became a teaching hospital of the University of Zambia. He later became senior surgeon for Zambia, and chief medical superintendent of the university teaching hospital. He was a good, practical, general surgeon interested chiefly in thoracic surgery rather than academia, who played a vital part in the development of the teaching hospital, doing more than his fair share of the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. He took an active part in the Association of Surgeons of East Africa and the Zambian Medical Association, and latterly was the editor of the *Medical journal of Zambia*. Carruthers was deeply involved in wildlife conservation and became an honorary game ranger in the Republic of Zambia, Chairman of the Wildlife Conservation Society (1970-73) and a member of the Ornithological Society of Zambia. He farmed 1000 acres of cattle and fruit production from 1970 until his death. His numerous medical publications included an article on bilharzial portal fibrosis in the *Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England* in 1978. Richard Carruthers married Dr K M Dempsey in 1953 and they had three daughters (two of whom became SRN, SCM) and one son. He was survived by his wife Kathleen and their family when he died on 15 April 1981 on his farm in Zambia.