John Bryant Curtis qualified MB BS at Melbourne University in 1939. After two years in junior posts at the Royal Melbourne Hospital he served as a medical officer with the Royal Australasian Air Force from 1943 to 1946 and in the latter year gained the MS from his university. In the following year h

Stanley Francis Reid, while a medical student at Melbourne, took a keen interest in flying and was one of a small band of students who joined the Citizen Air Force at Laverton, where he won his 'wings'. After qualifying MB BS Melbourne in 1936 he held posts as RMO in the Royal Melbourne Hospital, 19

David Aiken qualified in Dublin in 1940 and retained a home in Londonderry all his life. He became a Fellow of the College in 1947 and practised in the Sheffield area. After holding posts as senior surgical registrar at the United Sheffield Hospital and resident surgical officer for the Christie Hos

Leslie Peter Clark was born in New Zealand in 1909 and after early education entered Otago Medical School. He qualified in 1914 and two years later came to England where he undertook house officer appointments at All Saints' Hospital and the West London Hospital. At the outbreak of war he was on the

Robert Ellis Gibbins was born in Birmingham on 29 July 1914, the son of David Gibbins, an engineer, and his wife Ethel Emilie, née Rohrbach. He was educated at a number of different schools and at Birmingham University Medical School, where he qualified MB ChB in 1938. After resident jobs at the Que

William Girdwood was born in Johannesburg on 25 May 1913, the son of William, a general practitioner and FRCS Edinburgh. Two uncles and his grandfather were all doctors, training in Edinburgh. After Grey High School, Port Elizabeth, William entered Witwatersrand University and won the South African

Lewis Thomas was a highly respected consultant general surgeon who worked in the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, from 1961 to 1986. Prior to this, he had been a senior lecturer in surgery at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He served the RCS, first as a surgical tutor under the Nuffield 'pilot scheme', a

Gerald Nevill was a consultant surgeon in Kenya. He was born on 22 December 1915 in Nurney, County Carlow, Ireland, the son of Alexander Colles Nevill, Archdeacon of the Church of Ireland, and Rosettah Fitzgerald, a teacher of modern languages and one of the first women to graduate from the Universi

William Garden Hendry was a consultant surgeon at Highlands General Hospital and Wood Green and Southgate Hospital, London. He was born in Aberdeen on 30 September 1914, the son of two schoolteachers, and was brought up in a strict Presbyterian household. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School a

John Herdman was born on 15 December 1921. He studied medicine at Oxford, qualifying in 1945. He completed house jobs at the United Oxford Hospitals and at Ancoats, Manchester, from which he passed the FRCS. He then returned to the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research for two years, before underg

Austin Marsden was a consultant surgeon in Ormskirk and St Helens. He was born in St Helens, Lancashire, on Christmas Day 1919, the third son of George Marsden, a shoe merchant, and Agnes née Liptrot. He was educated at St Helens Catholic Grammar School, from which he went on to read medicine at Liv

Eric Musard Nanson was born in Geraldine, South Canterbury, New Zealand, on 4 January 1915, the youngest of five children of Gerald Bouchier Nanson, an Anglican vicar and Gertrude Florence (née Bell). His early education was at the Cathedral Grammar School, Christchurch and at Christ's College, Chri