Robert Allen Fitzsimons was born on 16 March 1892 at Maugherow, County Sligo, Ireland, and educated there at Summerhill College. He entered the Customs and Excise branch of the Civil Service by competitive examination in 1911 and in 1912 was transferred from Ireland to the Custom House at Billingsgate, London, where he rose to the position of Government Analyst. Although he loved his work as a chemist he decided on a career in medicine. He studied in the evenings at Birkbeck College and took the BSc in physics, chemistry and zoology in 1920. He was offered a scholarship to Charing Cross Hospital Medical School and resigned from the Civil Service in 1921. After further distinctions and prizes he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1926 and took the MB BS with distinction in surgery in 1930. After a post as house surgeon at Charing Cross he was in general practice at Brixton. He then moved to a practice in Cardiff and, while there, held part-time posts as a demonstrator in anatomy at the Welsh National School of Medicine and as a clinical assistant at Cardiff Royal Infirmary. In 1931 he became surgical registrar at Charing Cross. He took the FRCS in 1932 and the following year was appointed to the consultant staff. After a part-time appointment as surgical registrar to the National Orthopaedic Hospital he became in 1936 surgeon to the Metropolitan Hospital. His interest in fractures continued throughout his surgical career. He started a fracture clinic at Charing Cross and held this on two mornings a week, as well as a general surgical out-patient clinic, until his retirement in 1957. His research was on the healing of fractures and his clinical interest surgery of the thyroid and breast. During the second world war he was surgeon with charge of air-raid casualties at Charing Cross and he also worked at Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood, and the Metropolitan. He was a loyal friend and colleague with a keen sense of humour. His memory was phenomenal which might be attributed to his mother's custom of teaching him poetry to recite as they walked over the hills to and from school. He read poetry all his life and delighted his family and friends with his recitations. His other interests included music, art and drawing and his sketches during ward rounds and teaching sessions in his clinics were very fine. He loved using his hands and restored many works of art. Photography was another of his interests and he was also a keen gardener and rose-grower. In April 1927 he married Dr Mary Patricia McKelvey, a Westminster graduate whom he met at Charing Cross Hospital, which at that time was providing clinical facilities for students from the Westminster while it was being rebuilt. Their son, James Thomas, qualified as a doctor and became reader in physiology at Cambridge University and their daughter, Judith Mary, specialised as a paediatric neurologist. He died on 2 May 1978 aged 86 years.