Leslie Norman Pyrah was born at Farnley, near Leeds, on 11 April 1899, the son of a headmistress. Unfortunately no further details of his forbears are available. He was educated at Leeds Central High School and served in the army during the final stages of the first world war. He then read medicine

R H O B Robinson was born in 1897 in London. He was known to his friends as Joey. His childhood was spent in Upper Wimpole Street where his father practised as a consulting surgeon; and he lived all his days in a world of surgery that was changing. His career spanned the years that marked the evo

Born in London in 1903, he was educated at Alleyn's School and King's College Hospital where he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1927. After qualification he became resident surgical officer at the Hallam Hospital West Bromwich and then, returning to King's College Hospital, surgical registrar

Geoffrey Edward Parker was born on 24 June 1902 and was educated at Windlesham House School, Hove, Marlborough College, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He came to St Thomas's Hospital for his clinical course and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma and the Cambridge MB in 1926. Two years later he took t

John Francis Neil Ward-McQuaid, the son of Colonel John FTP Ward-McQuaid and his wife Enid Ecila, née Cheshire, was born on 30 December 1918 at Neston, Cheshire. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, where he won several prizes and was a notable cricketer. As the son of a serving army o

Stephen Power was born in Reading in 1902 the son of a general practitioner in Stamford Hill in North London. He was educated at St Ignatius College and the London Hospital Medical School, graduating MB, BS in 1925. He was appointed house surgeon and subsequently clinical assistant at the London and

William Hamer, son of William, a chartered accountant, and his wife, Alice Marjorie, née Evans, was born in London on 22 July 1919. From Boston Grammar School and Oakham School, Rutland, he went to St Mary's Hospital, London. He held house appointments at the Postgraduate Medical School and was infl

Andrew Higgins was born in Middlesex in 1943 and qualified from the Royal Free Hospital, London, in 1968. He studied surgery at Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Northern Hospital and at the Royal Free Hospital. He married a fellow student, Jane, and they had one son and three daughters - one of whom i

Born in Bristol on 20 June 1912, 'Bill' Waterfall's father was Robinson Waterfall, a chemical manufacturer of fertilisers. His mother was Mary Louisa Radley, the daughter of a schoolmaster. He was educated at Bootham School, York, where he won an entrance scholarship, but was taken ill, and passed t

Born in 1913 at Grassington, Yorkshire, he was the elder son of Professor H S Raper DSc, FRS, Professor of Physiology in Leeds from 1917 to 1923 and in Manchester from 1923 to 1946, when he became Dean of the Faculty until his death in 1951. Raper was educated at Giggleswick School and the medical s

John Arthur Pocock, the son of a general practitioner, was born on 22 August 1905. He went to school at Oundle and then to Cambridge and University College, London, where he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1928. He took the Cambridge degree in 1931 and the FRCS in 1934, and after some junior

Cyril Charles Wiggishoff was chief of staff at St Joseph's Hospital, Chicago. He was born in Paris, France, on 17 March 1923, the son of Charles Cecil Wiggishoff, company director of his family's perfumery factory, and Marguerite Wiggishoff née Rouy. His paternal great grandfather, Jacques Charles W