Richard Maliphant was born in Merthyr Tydfil on 17 January 1900, the second son of Richard Maliphant, an official in the Cyfartha steel works, and of Mary Morgan, daughter of a coal merchant. He was educated at Cyfartha Secondary School and went straight into the RNVR where he served in 1917-1918 as a wireless telegraphist. In 1919 he entered University College, Cardiff, with a Cory Scholarship and secured the Alfred Hughes Gold Medal in anatomy and the Price Prize. He then moved to University College Hospital, London, graduating in 1925 and proceeding MD in 1927 and MRCP in the following year. He passed the FRCS in 1931 and was elected FRCOG in 1938. After resident appointments at UCH and the West London and Samaritan Hospitals he returned to Cardiff as radium registrar to the Royal Infirmary. He was appointed honorary obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Royal Infirmary in 1932 and achieved a high reputation as a clinical teacher, and as a clinician whose practice was based upon sound conservative principles. He had a special interest in cancer of the cervix and gained wide experience in its treatment with radium, writing a number of valuable papers on this subject, and on its aetiology. He was never enthusiastic about the surgical treatment of this disease. After relatively early election to the FRCOG he became actively concerned in that college's affairs rather late in life, serving on its hospital recognition committee 1958-1964 and as its chairman for the last three years. He was a member of Council of the RCOG 1961-1967, and an examiner in obstetrics and gynaecology in the RCS Conjoint for six years. An able, but rather shy and unassuming man his contributions in clinical debate or committee were always carefully weighed and revealed shrewd judgement. He had a delightful sense of humour and evinced warm friendship and loyalty. He was a keen golfer and cricket lover, spending many days after his retirement at the Glamorgan County Cricket Club of which he was a vice-president, but his abiding joy was in music and especially in the piano. He married Dilys Davies in 1935 and they had two daughters, one of whom is a doctor and the other a nurse. He died on 1 January 1978, survived by his wife and daughters.