Noel Adeney, known as 'Jeff', was born in Cairo on 26 November 1897. His father, Frederick Field Adeney, was a priest, his mother was Rosalie, neé Savage. He was educated at Monkton Combe School and then St John's College, Cambridge, on an open classical scholarship. He served in the first world war, in the Royal Field Artillery, between 1916 and 1918. He won a university entrance scholarship to St Mary's Hospital Medical School, where he graduated in 1923. He was a house surgeon at St Mary's, then a surgical clinical assistant at the Brompton Hospital, where he was influenced in his training by J E A Roberts and by Tudor Edwards. He was then appointed surgeon to Bournemouth and East Dorset hospitals and also held the appointment of thoracic surgeon to the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. He later became a member of the same board and Chairman of the local division of the British Medical Association. He married Bettie Wardle in 1925 and they had one son, Robin, and one daughter, Mary. He died on 9 July 1999.