Jack Walsh was director of the National Spinal Injuries Centre, Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The son of Thomas Walsh, a doctor, and Margaret Walsh née O’Sullivan, he was born in Cork on 4 July 1917. He was educated at Mungret College, University College Cork and Trinity College Dublin, where he qualified in 1940. After a junior surgical post at St George’s Hospital, London during the war, he joined Ludwig Guttmann’s team at the National Spinal Injuries Centre, Stoke Mandeville. He was appointed SHMO there and was made a consultant when that grade was abolished. He became an expert on the general surgical care of paraplegics and in particular the treatment of pressure sores. He was appointed deputy to Guttmann in 1957 and applied in practice the principles laid down by his chief. He was a founder member of the International Medical Society of Paraplegia in 1961 and was appointed an honorary consultant to the National Centre for Paraplegia in Ireland. His book *Understanding paraplegia* (London, Tavistock Publications, 1964) was widely read. When Guttmann retired in 1966 Walsh succeeded him as director, a position which brought him many honours, including the FRCS by election in 1969 and the FRCP in 1975. He retired in 1977 to take up a consultancy at the Paddocks Private Clinic in Princes Risborough. He married Joan Birks in 1946 and they had three sons, James, Jeremy and John, and a daughter, Jacqueline. In retirement, he was a keen fisherman and enjoyed the Buckinghamshire countryside. Joan predeceased him by six weeks. He died on 31 December 1992. **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 8 of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**