Alfreda Helen Baker, elder daughter of Alfred Rawlings Baker, an artist, and of Hannah Mary Baker (née Holdaway), was born in Belfast on 2 October 1897. She was educated at Belfast College of Technology, where she secured an honours diploma in chemistry, and at Queen's University, Belfast, where she graduated with honours in anatomy at the University from 1922 to 1924. Appointed Riddel research fellow at the Royal Free Hospital, her work on the causation of foetal death led to the award of the MD with commendation in 1926. There followed a house surgical appointment at the Royal Cancer Hospital (now Royal Marsden), where she was much influenced by Ernest Miles. She became FRCS in 1927. She was appointed consultant surgeon to the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Marie Curie Hospitals in 1937. During the second world war, the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital was evacuated to Oster House, St Albans, a fairly primitive former Poor Law institution then serving as a busy wartime Emergency Medical Service hospital. The medical staff like that of the nearby St Bartholomew's sector unit at Hill End Mental Hospital, commuted to London for out-patient clinics as students of both the Royal Free School of Medicine for Women (as it then was) and Bart's were billeted in St Albans. The wealth of emergency and clinical work there was recognised to be far greater than in central London with much benefit to students of both teaching hospitals. Indeed, Miss Baker frequently took her women students to "Bart's in Herts" to supplement their clinical experience. She was an excellent all round teacher and trainer of undergraduates and residents, suffering neither verbosity nor fools gladly; but was widely respected for her example, integrity and industry, her intolerance of the second-rate and her insistence on careful and comprehensive case records. The seeds sown in St Albans in wartime were to lead to the establishment of an excellent district hospital in 1948. Thus was the NHS, in a multitude of similar places, founded on the traditions and high standards of the past and carried on the broad shoulders of the medical and nursing professions. But the parent hospitals were to face many problems on returning to London after the war, and the EGA was no exception. Miss Baker, during the years prior to her retirement from the NHS in 1962, put her professional and personal qualities to good use, although she always looked back on her wartime work with nostalgia and justifiable pride. She gave herself with enthusiasm to any cause dear to her heart, not least to the interests of women in medicine and to the basic ethos of the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in providing a service for women by women. After retirement to Essex she enjoyed village life and foreign travel and was able to exercise the talent in both oil-painting and water colours that she had inherited from her artist father. Though she never married, she was a warm friend to many, a loyal colleague and staunch supporter of her hospitals, widely recognised for her sterling character, her wit, good humour and integrity. A devout and lifelong exponent of the Christian faith, she died in her sleep on 1 June 1984.