Murray Falconer was born in New Zealand in 1910 and received his medical education at Otago University, Dunedin, from where he graduated MB BCh in 1934 and MCh in 1938. He obtained his FRCS in 1935, a year after he graduated. In 1937 he went to the United States as a Fellow in Surgery at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester. In the following year he came as a Nuffield Dominions Fellow to Oxford, where he trained under Sir Hugh Cairns at the Radcliffe Infirmary. War had broken out, and he continued his training in Oxford in the RAMC at St Hugh's College which had been converted into a military hospital for head injuries. In 1943 he returned home to New Zealand as Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Otago University where he set up a neurosurgical service for returning pensioners from the services. He obtained the FRACS in 1944 and was one of the first to advocate surgical treatment of cerebral aneurysms that had caused subarachnoid haemorrhage. He produced a number of papers on a wide variety of subjects over the next few years. He returned to London in 1947 as Hunterian Professor in the Royal College of Surgeons of England on the subject of lumbar disc protrusion. He renewed his friendship with Cairns and other neurologists and neurosurgeons with whom he had worked at St Hugh's. Two years later he was invited to return as consultant neurosurgeon to Guy's Hospital and the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals. The neurosurgical unit was created from the unused private wing of the Maudsley and was opened in 1952. In 1963 it became also the unit for King's College Hospital. He continued to work as Director until his retirement in 1975. The close proximity of the unit to the Institute of Psychiatry provided a unique opportunity for Murray Falconer to develop an interest in the surgery of temporal lobe epilepsy in conjunction with colleagues in neuropathology, EEG and neuroradiology. He gradually built up a teaching and research unit of renown. No fewer than 18 consultant neurosurgeons received all or part of their training in the neurosurgical unit during his time there. He travelled widely and on five occasions held visiting professorships at various universities in the United States. He was honoured by the Presidents of the Lebanon and Gambia, and by honorary membership of many foreign neurosurgical societies. The drive and determination which enabled him to continue work, despite repeated illnesses over many years, were always supported by his devoted wife and two daughters. He died on 11 August 1977.