Harold Homewood Nixon (Nicky) was born in Newcastle on 27 February 1918, the son of Isaac Nixon, a chartered accountant. After early education at Fenham High School and the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, for pre-clinical studies in 1935 and Durham

Gamini Wickramarachchi Karunaratne, or 'Gam' as he was always called, was a pioneer of paediatric surgery in Sri Lanka. He was born in Kamburugamuwa, southern Sri Lanka, on 19 April 1929. His father was Wilson Karunaratne and his mother was Tilaka. He had two brothers and five sisters. His early sch

Jeremy Lawson was a highly respected paediatric surgeon being on the consultant staff of three London hospitals, namely St Thomas’, Westminster Children’s and Great Ormond Street (honorary). He also had an attachment to Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton. He was born in London on 1 July 1927, the

John Meiring Beck was a consultant paediatric surgeon at Leeds General Infirmary. He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 10 August 1933. His father, Johannes Henricus Meiring Beck, was a general practitioner; his mother, Mavis Beck née Courtenay, was a legal secretary prior to her marriage. B

John Scott was the first full-time paediatric surgeon in the then Northern Region when he was appointed as a senior lecturer and honorary consultant in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1960. He continued to provide the service essentially single-handed for the next decade. He was born in Zanzibar, East Africa

Thomas Twistington Higgins was born on 19 November 1887 in Bolton, Lancashire, his father having been Vicar of Congleton. He went to school at Pocklington in East Yorkshire, and then on an entrance scholarship to Manchester University where he graduated MB, ChB in 1909 with distinctions in medicine,

Born at Auxey in Burgundy on 8 December 1871, the son of a landed proprietor and wine-grower, he was educated at a Jesuit school and at Dijon University. Transferring to Paris he discovered his taste for anatomy, was placed first in the examination for externes, served under Delbet 1894, under Rigal

Gordon Stuart Baron-Hay was a consultant paediatric surgeon at the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth, Western Australia. He was born in Perth on 26 June 1935. His father was George Kingston Baron-Hay, an agriculturalist; his mother, Vera, was a psychiatrist. He was educated at Wesley

George Macnab was born in Edinburgh on 12 March 1904, and went to school at Edinburgh Academy. He then proceeded to his medical studies at Edinburgh Unviersity and graduated in 1926. After house appointments in West Hartlepool and at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, he came to London and worked at th

John Grieve Whitaker was born in 1895, the son of a doctor who qualified in Belfast, and his mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Grieve, was of Scottish descent. His father died when John was eight years old, and the family then moved to Canterbury, a suburb of Melbourne, where he was educated a

Roger Edward Cudmore was a consultant paediatric surgeon at Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool. He studied medicine in Sheffield and then served for two years in a Methodist hospital in Nigeria. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the children’s hospitals in Liverpool in 1972, where he was truly a gen

Jimmy Lister was an emeritus professor of paediatric surgery at the University of Liverpool and a former vice-president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Born in London on 1 March 1923, the son of Thomas Lister, a chartered accountant, and Anna Rebecca Lister, two of his siblings – John