Derrick Tilton Vail was born in Cincinnati on 15 May 1898, and did his medical course at Harvard University, graduating MD in 1923. He then spent a year as ophthalmic intern at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and in 1926 he became instructor in ophthalmology at the University of Cincinnati C

George William Black was born in Boston, Lincolnshire on 21 January 1903 and was educated at Boston Grammar School and at the Middlesex Hospital, qualifying in 1926. During his early years in London he became very conscious of the divisions in English life, joining the Fabian Society and becoming a

Ogilvie Duthie, the eldest son of the director of education at Salford, was born on 19 September 1899, in Manchester. After education at Manchester Grammar School he enlisted in the Navy in 1916, at the age of 17, as a Sub-Lieutenant. Entering Manchester University after the war he qualified in 1921

Brian Harcourt was born on 3 March 1934, the son of John Ellison Harcourt, a scientific instrument manufacturer in Liverpool and Bertha Florence Kneen. His grandfather, Richard Eugene Harcourt FRCS (1858-1921), was an ophthalmic surgeon, also in Liverpool. Harcourt was educated at Quarry Bank High S

Anthony Gordon Palin was born in Wallington, Surrey, on 29 July 1907, the son of Frederick Palin, a barrister. He was educated at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate, Oxford University and St Thomas's Hospital, qualifying in 1933. After completing post-graduate training he was appointed consultant ophthal

William Stewart Duke-Elder was born on 22 April 1898 at Tealing, near Dundee, the son of a Scottish minister. Before proceeding to St Andrew's University as a foundation scholar in 1915 he had been a brilliant pupil at school and was invariably top of the class. He graduated MA in 1919 with first cl

John Romano was born on 24 May 1926 into a Jewish-Italian family in Cairo, where he was educated and subsequently qualified in medicine. His father Albert Romano was a barrister and his mother was Marie Afif. In Cairo he became fluent in English, French, Italian and Arabic, skills that he later used

Born on 18 March 1928 in Christchurch, Averill was educated at Christ's College, Christchurch, at Canterbury University College and then at the Otago Medical School. He spent two years as house surgeon to Palmerston North Hospital and then came to Britain to study ophthalmology at Moorfields, obtain

Thomas Crawford Barras came of a distinguished Glasgow medical family. His father, William Barras, was President of the Scottish Society of Anaesthetists at the time of his death in a motoring accident in 1928, and his grandfather Thomas Crawford also practised as a doctor in Glasgow. Barras was

Lewis Herbert Savin was born in London on 26 March 1901. His parents were missionaries who had fled from China at the time of the Boxer rebellion a few months before his birth. Shortly after, his father and mother returned to the hospital that his father had founded at Chao Tung in Yunnan. He used t

Mark Treisman, the son of Wolfe Treisman, an outfitter, and of Esther (née Davis) was born in London on 10 May 1898. His paternal grandparents and several generations of his family were farmers in Lithuania until Jews were forbidden to own land there. He later changed his name to Tree and states tha

Andrew Elkington was a consultant ophthalmologist in Southampton and one of the founders of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. He was born on 12 December 1935 in Newport, Shropshire, into a medical family; his ancestors had been doctors since the eighteenth century. His father, George Ernest Elk