Born 24 September 1863, the son of Thomas William Cowell, MRCS. He was educated at Westminster, where he entered in 1876, and was elected a Queen's Scholar in 1879, and at University College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1886. He became assistant secretary of the Royal College of Surgeons in 188

Sir Miles Clifford was born in 1897 and, after a private education and military service in France and Flanders during the first world war, entered the Colonial Service and was appointed to the administration service in Nigeria. In the early years of the second world war he commanded the Nigerian Eur

Ronald Stuart Johnson-Gilbert, or 'J-G' as he was known with affection throughout the College, was our secretary from 1962 to 1988. He was born on 14 July 1925, the son of Sir Ian A Johnson-Gilbert CBE and Rosalind Bell-Hughes, and was proud to be a descendant of Samuel Johnson. He was educated at t

Harold Wilson Bruce was born in 1876 and trained at Guy's Hospital, where he qualified MB BS in 1897. He proceeded MD in 1899 and passed the FRCS in 1901. After holding a house appointment at Guy's he served in the Boer War and then went to India to join the team fighting plague in Bombay. On his re

John Mortimer Leggate, known as Jack, was born at West Kirby on 7 April 1904, the son of a general practitioner, James Leggate, and his wife Elizabeth, née Thomas. He was educated at Liverpool College and the University of Liverpool where he became President of the Guild of Undergraduates. He gradua

David Portley qualified in Brisbane in 1944 and came to England during the war to specialise in surgery. He was a registrar at the Royal Bristol Hospitals and the Central Middlesex Hospital before returning to be medical administrator of the Bundaberg Hospital. He then became a staff specialist at t

Sir Douglas Ranger was a distinguished otolaryngologist and a fine medical administrator. He was born in Dalton in Furness, Lancashire, on 5 October 1916, the second son of William Ranger and Hatton Thomasina Grigg. His father was, in turn, a schoolmaster, an army officer, and latterly a businessman