Peter Rees-Davies was born on 23 February 1913 at Long Ditton, Surrey, the son of John Rees-Davies, a general practitioner, and his wife Grace, née Etheredge. He was educated at Epsom College, and then received his medical education at the London Hospital, as had his father before him. In the second world war he served as medical officer with the Coldstream Guards before going with a Royal Army Medical Corps field unit with the West African Frontier Force in Burma, commanding a field ambulance there with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Mrs Rees-Davies, in filling in her husband's *curriculum vitae* for the *Lives* stated that 'after the war finding the Attlee government and the National Health Service incompatible with his independent spirit, he emigrated to Canada'. In Canada he gained his FRCS Canada and became surgeon on the staff of St Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, and was appointed to the teaching staff of the University of British Columbia. In his school and hospital he was a very keen rugger player, while in Canada he played as much golf as his spare time would permit. In 1966 he married Patricia Hunter, head nurse in charge of the post-surgical unit at St Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, who survived him when he died on 30 January 1996.